Type out about two paragraphs worth of stuff. It doesn't really matter what, as long as it's vaguely coherent. Banal is good. Perfect, even.

Go to the first word. Control-Right Arrow your way through the text; at semi-random intervals stop, and hit the Enter key. The length of the intervals depends on how long you want your poem to be; but don't be consistent.

When you have reached the end, look to see: is your poem the right length of lines? If so, hit save. If not, go back up to the text and create/remove lines as necessary.

Pick a title. Pick something vague, pretentious, and at least vaguely related to the text.

So something like this:

The amount of detergent to use depends on the water hardness. Water hardness is measured in grains per gallon. Using too little detergent can result in poor cleaning and hard water filming or spotting. Using too much detergent in soft water can cause a permanent film called etching.

Europe's passport-free Schengen zone is facing the biggest test of its two-decade existence after Sweden re-imposed controls on visitors crossing from Denmark across what had been one of most open borders in the world.

Hours after the measures came into effect, Denmark announced it would slap new controls on its own border with Germany, while Berlin warned that the 26-nation zone of passport-free travel was now "in danger".

Six Schengen countries - Austria, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark and non-EU member Norway - have now reintroduced border checks as Europe struggles to cope with an unprecedented influx of refugees and migrants from conflict zones including Syria and Afghanistan.

If you're white in America, your life is supposed to be nothing but cotton candy, pretty prom dates, glowing health, and riches. A cloud never crosses your sky. In recent weeks, the cries of "White privilege!" have grown louder.

True, it's easier to belong to a racial majority than to a racial minority - or at least it is in most cases. Black people have coped with any number of obstacles and slights in this country, well after Jim Crow (to say nothing of slavery).

But lives are lived individually, aren't they? Rather than in groups?

Years ago, I worked briefly for a man who seemed to be a classic one-percenter. He was employed in a prestigious law firm and had been to the best schools: Princeton, Oxford, and Harvard, I believe, and in that order. One day, I asked him about his earlier life. And my eyes widened as he talked. He was from West Virginia. His family didn't have running water, as I remember. He himself didn't have proper shoes until he was 14. He didn't have any books, either. But a prominent man in town - I think it was a banker - let him use his private library. And that helped this kid, Michael, a lot.

Later, when the world looked at him, I'm sure they saw nothing but "white privilege." But they knew nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Daring to dissent in a time of group-think fanaticism is a dangerous choice.

Second-year George Lawlor, 19, fears for his future at Warwick University after being ostracised and bullied for challenging a student union drive to hold rape awareness sessions.

Writing in a blog, he argued that the overwhelming majority of people 'don't have to be taught to not be a rapist' - and that men inclined to commit the crime would be unlikely to attend such a workshop.

He added that he found his invitation to one of the sessions 'incredibly hurtful'.

But in the latest example of politically correct intolerance in universities, the student faced a fierce backlash from radical feminists. He was attacked on Twitter and Facebook by student activists branding him a 'rapist' and 'misogynist'.

...Mr Lawlor added: 'There was one guy messaging me on Facebook for over a week, calling me names like racist, rapist . I've stopped going to lectures and seminars because of the perceived threat.'

He said he was driven out of a bar in Leamington after some students overheard his friend mention his name. 'These six guys just crowded round me and started shouting at me . calling me a rapist, a misogynist, and threatening me . I had to get out of there,' he said.

My "Aha Moment" happened because of a package of hamburger meat. I asked my husband to stop by the store to pick up a few things for dinner, and when he got home, he plopped the bag on the counter. I started pulling things out of the bag, and realized he'd gotten the 70/30 hamburger meat - which means it's 70% lean and 30% fat.

...That's how it started. I launched into him. I berated him for not being smarter. Why would he not get the more healthy option? Did he even read the labels? Why can't I trust him? Do I need to spell out every little thing for him in minute detail so he gets it right? Also, and the thing I was probably most offended by, why wasn't he more observant? How could he not have noticed over the years what I always get? Does he not pay attention to anything I do?

As he sat there, bearing the brunt of my righteous indignation and muttering responses like, "I never noticed," "I really don't think it's that big of a deal," and "I'll get it right next time," I saw his face gradually take on an expression that I'd seen on him a lot in recent years. It was a combination of resignation and demoralization. He looked eerily like our son does when he gets chastised. That's when it hit me. "Why am I doing this? I'm not his mom."

I suddenly felt terrible. And embarrassed for myself. He was right. It really wasn't anything to get bent out of shape over. And there I was doing just that. Over a silly package of hamburger meat that he dutifully picked up from the grocery store just like I asked. If I had specific requirements, I should have been clearer. I didn't know how to gracefully extract myself from the conversation without coming across like I have some kind of split personality, so I just mumbled something like, "Yeah. I guess we'll make do with this. I'm going to start dinner."

He seemed relieved it was over and he left the kitchen.

Remember that people - especially your spouse - have an empathy budget. And when you're a bitch or a dick to them, their forbearance of your behavior out of love saps that budget until there's none left for any generosity or affection.

Comments

With the global climate agreement agreed upon by a bunch of elitists that wasted far more CO2 than some small countries, the burden of sacrificing for Gaia falls squarely on the shoulders of the poor and elderly.

14I saw his face gradually take on an expression that I'd seen on him a lot in recent years. It was a combination of resignation and demoralization. He looked eerily like our son does when he gets chastised. That's when it hit me. "Why am I doing this? I'm not his mom."

Man, whatever drug she was on at the time, make more of it.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 04, 2016 11:01 PM (9YDUz)

15
It's less fun calling people bastards when there's a good chance they might actually be one.

31
I am watching a very depressing show on cable called "Cartel Land", about things on both sides of the border, fighting smuggling, coyotes (human smugglers) and the drug cartels (in Mexico).

I'm sure there are all the multi-culti freaks that want to be all compassionate toward Mexicans here, but if we controlled the border and denied the Cartels the ability to smuggle drugs and make BILLIONS selling them here, it would go a long way to making life better for the average Mexican.

43
That college student needs to go back to that bar and be ready to stand his ground.

Goddamn fucking Communists.

Posted by: eman at January 04, 2016 11:08 PM (MQEz6)

44
Remember that people - especially your spouse - have an empathy budget. And when you're a bitch or a dick to them their forbearance of your behavior out of love saps that budget until there's none left for any generosity or affection.
-------
Good advice for a dick like me. Thanks Maet

53
49 Nineteen and in a bar?Posted by: eman at January 04, 2016 11:11 PM (MQEz6)

It's in the UK.

Posted by: Maetenloch at January 04, 2016 11:11 PM (pAlYe)

54
Indirect fire requires a lot of math.
Math is easier when you have real world problems to solve instead of mysterious A + B Cos Theta

Posted by: A.Smythers, A Celt at January 04, 2016 11:12 PM (3BI4N)

55
Right, anyone who's been married for a little while knows that the husband made a terrible tactical error. He should have gone on offense immediately talking about how you can't get fat by eating fat, everyone knows that now. Plus the fat actually helps you loose weight. 70/30 FTW!Never admit error...

Posted by: Last at January 04, 2016 11:12 PM (8HiDF)

56
My nephew styles himself a poet. Writes stuff like that, all heavy and fraught with angst-y meaning. I'm not sure what he does for a living.

Goody for him.

Posted by: Seamus Muldoon at January 04, 2016 11:12 PM (NeFrd)

57
Didn't read any books by men in 2015, "Between the World and Me" notwithstanding. Not reading any books by white people in 2016.

Tweeted by a long haired white women about 45 minutes ago. Ain't she special, bless her heart.

68
Hey, hi there! Is the ONT late or am I hungry? For cookies and hot chocolate!

Milady and I realized, here we are, the 10th day of Christmas, and we hadn't watched a single Christmas movie. So many choices in our library...

So, we just finished watching The Santa Clause; her suggestion. I wouldn't have picked it. But... you know... I got dusty-eyed. It's one of two great movies that Tim Allen really works in. (Great hat-tip scene in Santa's workshop where "Scott Calvin" tries on a toolbelt.) In fact, I don't think I've ever seen him in anything else.

69Remember that people . . . have an empathy budget. And when you're a bitch or a dick to them their forbearance of your behavior out of love saps that budget until there's none left for any generosity and affection.

That goes for parents and children as well. I had a mother whose verbal abuse was unending-- I remember after one of her visits (when I was in my 50s!), I discovered that she had criticized nearly everything I had tried to do to make her visit as pleasant as possible to one of her neighbors. When I asked her what I could have done that would have pleased her better, she gave me a childish smirk and said, "Oh, nothing. You know me, I just like to bitch and complain."
That made me realize that her endless faultfinding was just a control tactic. I told her that I had no intention of ever going out of my way to please her ever again-- because I had figured out why she behaved the way she did, and that I was just going to do whatever seemed best to me, and to heck with her.
I don't know whether the confrontation did much good, as she was already in her 80s when I finally told her off. but as far as my forbearance being exhausted, I have to say the well had run dry years earlier. She died a few years after that painful visit, and it is a sad comment on the relationship (if you can call it that) that we had that I don't miss her.
Yeah, I guess Maet struck a nerve with tonight's ONT.

85He said he was driven out of a bar in Leamington after some students overheard his friend mention his name. 'These six guys just crowded round me and started shouting at me . calling me a rapist, a misogynist, and threatening me . I had to get out of there,' he said.

The bar scene from the first episode of South Park this season where they are at a college bar.

87
Well, I just read that a damned Muslim of Moroccan descent has been appointed to the post of Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons in the UK. He was a civil servant who has apparently lobbied for terrorist sponsoring groups in the past.

He declared that, Allah willing, he'll do the job.

This the dude who holds the Mace, that "bauble" that Oliver Cromwell had removed when he dissolved Parliament in that famous "In the name of God, go!" speech. You know, "Is there one virtue you still possess -- is there one vice you do not possess?"

95
so over the weekend I watched some of the walking zombie stuff. why would someone let the zombies out of the pit?

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:20 PM (vb33c)

96
I love fat. Fat is flavor. Fat keeps the lean moist while cooking. And it's a great lubricant. It passes pretty much straight through. Obese people get that way eating jelly doughnuts and too many carbs.

Posted by: Grampa Jimbo at January 04, 2016 11:20 PM (1ijHg)

97How pathetic of her to have to brag about this on Twitter.
Posted by: nerdygirl

101
Obama is saying his gun control EOs are worth it if they save a life or two. You know what's proven to save a life or two: stop-and-frisk, in any large US city, over a long weekend, sometimes less.

Either these Obama executive orders (1) have some purported legal effect or (2) they don't.

If (1) then Obama is usurping the authority of courts to interpret statutes, agencies like the ATF to administer them, and the DOJ to enforce them, all of which are unconstitutional.

Lynch is trying to satisfy her boss, and still live with her Constitutional duties, by trying to say that this is a "nothing burger" that doesn't really change much of anything legally. But in principle it does,

So the invetitable news and commentary cycle will distract us from the issues that matter.

The only good from this is that Hillary will be nailed to the mast on this, which at the margin can swing OH, PA, CO, NH, NV, VA and dare I say it NY!. Let us pray

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 04, 2016 11:21 PM (rs5De)

102
I question the ability of those children to handle those crew weapons properly. Can they even lift and supply the ammunition?!
-------
Hodor!

118Lynch is trying to satisfy her boss, and still live with her Constitutional duties, by trying to say that this is a "nothing burger" that doesn't really change much of anything legally. But in principle it does,Posted by: Ignoramus

It does matter when the gun-running ATF starts stings looping in people that sell 2 old, beat up guns to an informant.

Presto-bingo, that guy is now compelled by a plea deal to turn into an informant.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (9YDUz)

119
Ha! I was saying the same thing to better half last week.
Haven't heard anything about Kwaanza this year.

Posted by: keena at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (RiTnx)

120
"I started pulling things out of the bag, and realized he'd gotten the 70/30 hamburger meat - which means it's 70% lean and 30% fat.
...That's how it started. I launched into him. I berated him for not being smarter. Why would he not get the more healthy option? Did he even read the labels?
At that point he told me I could either cook it or have it shoved up my ass. Then he grabbed a beer form the fridge and sat in front of the TV."

Posted by: How that story should have ended at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (/FOB4)

122
Here's my "scary theory," although it actually has to do with Christianity:

What was described in the Book of Revelation, is *really* about what will happen when *you* die, NOT when God decides to recycle the entire universe.

If my hypothesis is true (giant 'if' I admit), therefore, the great mass "rapture" that many Christians believe in will never occur, at least the way they envision it.

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (ntObR)

123
"Had the privilege this evening of meeting 'ette Steck again along with hubby Mr. Steck at the gun range, "

Glad you had a good time, blano. Congrats.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (rwJmd)

124
95 so over the weekend I watched some of the walking zombie stuff. why would someone let the zombies out of the pit?
Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:20 PM (vb33c)

That is what you do on the dumbest show of all time.
Posted by: eman at January 04, 2016 11:24 PM (MQEz6)

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (vb33c)

125I'm not a big fan of fat on my meat. Fat is for making soap to clean yourself up after having had a great extra-lean meat meal.
Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at January 04, 2016 11:15 PM (zc3Db)

Ahem. Bacon. One of the most important things I learned in college is that after you fry bacon, you can grill bread in the bacon fat in the frying pan. They did that in the dorm, and I'd never seen it before. I think it was something that black kids liked. Damn was that good.

Posted by: nerdygirl at January 04, 2016 11:25 PM (+lVUW)

126
That guy has it good. Mrs. Franpsycho freaked out the last time I bought beef, let alone 70/30. Tonight was chicken sausage. Yuk.

Posted by: San Franpsycho at January 04, 2016 11:26 PM (Vv/Pc)

127
What a ignorant thing to say-"I'm not going to ready any books by any men or any white men in 2016"
How about you just read about a book on Amazon and see if it interests you and then decide if you're going to read it-not based on the gender or ethnicity of the author?!!.

None of these theories are any scarier than the run-of-the-mill, conventional idea of the physical universe - that it is destined to die in one of a number of ways, but no matter it is guaranteed to die and take everything with it, thereby removing all possible meaning from any of Man's puny, finite, and inconsequential endeavors. In the classical theory, the fate of the universe rests solely on how much matter there is, but no matter how much and how the end comes, everything that Man will have done will be for naught.

That's just your standard physical model of the universe. Pretty much as vacuous and meaningless as any of the other theories. Just different ways to get to the idea that nothing matters (no pun intended!).

132127 How about you just read about a book on Amazon and see if it interests you and then decide if you're going to read it-not based on the gender or ethnicity of the author?!!.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 04, 2016 11:26 PM (M+RRn)

Oh, sure, like the pleasure of reading can compete at all with the pleasure of virtue-signalling?

145
qdpsteve, you are preaching to the choir here. The theological idea of "the rapture" has been around less than 200 years. If Thomas Aquinas didn't know about it, ...

Posted by: Grampa Jimbo at January 04, 2016 11:29 PM (1ijHg)

146
That's just your standard physical model of the universe.--------Just curious, not that it really means anything to us living now, but do you lean toward the big squeeze theory or the big freeze theory?

149
There was a short period of time where the drinking age, at least in Michigan, was lowered to 18. That didn't last long. Apparently, the age of under-age drinkers also dropped.

Posted by: nerdygirl at January 04, 2016 11:22 PM (+lVUW)

I was in college when the drinking age in Michigan went back to 21 from 18. Not a fun several months, and we could get others to buy for us, but we loaded up those last few days anyways.

Posted by: Blano at January 04, 2016 11:30 PM (C3E0x)

150
Repost from last one:
I've asked for prayers for my friend Gayle because she had cancerous brain tumor that was size of a golf ball. It's Stage ; & surgeons could remove approximately 80% of it. I don't do FB, but signed up only to read her latest.
Gayle is one of sweetest women you'd ever know & has more then her share of grief. It was Stage 4 G?? (Too much unless I copy & paste) & she's had good & bad days.
Today she was supposed to start 42 days of both chemo & radiation.
I had email since blog broke & she updated her FB page to "end stage."

Please pray for my,lovely,friend Gayle not to put herself through hell for a miserable & sick few extra weeks.

Thank you & please remember her name, Gayle.

Posted by: Carol at January 04, 2016 11:30 PM (sj3Ax)

151
Qdpsteve check out http://www.pajiba.com. It's about the Making of a Murderer.

152I just read that a damned Muslim of Moroccan descent has been appointed to the post of Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Commons in the UK. Shit. And in Canada at least that post is appointed via the government (and not "earned" through the civil service) so that means the Cameron government is directly responsible for that.

Addendum: it looks like a Commons committee of MPs (now) selects the S-a-A although that was undoubtedly formed with a Conservative majority of MPs on the panel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_El-Hajji

I *cannot* stand the charlatans screaming about the Rapture. IMHO Hal Lindsey (among others) is a complete fraud and jackass who's probably done more to turn people *off* of Christianity since 1965 than Dawkins, Harris, PZ Myers and a lot of other hateful atheists put together.

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 04, 2016 11:31 PM (ntObR)

160Remember that people . . . have an empathy budget. And when you're a bitch or a dick to them their forbearance of your behavior out of love saps that budget until there's none left for any generosity and affection.

That goes for parents and children as well.

I was lucky. My mom was pretty controlling when we were kids, but once we grew up and were on our own, she backed off. I'd never heard her comment to any of my brothers or sisters about how they raise their kids. I think that after raising 6 kids, she was relieved to not have the responsibility for our behavior anymore.

169
146 That's just your standard physical model of the universe.
--------
Just curious, not that it really means anything to us living now, but do you lean toward the big squeeze theory or the big freeze theory?
Posted by: Old Blue at January 04, 2016 11:29 PM (9iR5/)

I stick with the Febreze theory. It's the same old rotten, rancid, putrid, smelly universe, it just gets deodorized occasionally.

Have seen 1985's "Vision Quest" numerous times however. Matthew Modine *before* Full Metal Jacket. Great flick, and has an opening scene (he gets hit on, in a major way, by a gay man) that would *never* pass PC muster in Hollywood today.

Fat makes food taste better. And also the consistency (what they call mouth feel) is more appetizing.
Posted by: Bitter Clinger 1.0 and All That at January 04, 2016 11:33 PM (Xo1Rt)

why do you think sharks like to eat all the fat of of seals?

indeed fat makes everything mouth better.

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:35 PM (vb33c)

181
That's just your standard physical model of the universe. Pretty much as vacuous and meaningless as any of the other theories. Just different ways to get to the idea that nothing matters (no pun intended!).
Posted by: ThePrimordialOrderedPair at January 04, 2016 11:27 PM (zc3Db)

Yeah, heat death of the Universe at maximum entropy is a real bummer.

But, maybe we can hop into new and younger universes and do that forever?

Posted by: eman at January 04, 2016 11:35 PM (MQEz6)

182
" I learned in college is that after you fry bacon, you can grill bread in the bacon fat in the frying pan"

183
"I think 2015 is the year we finally stopped pretending that Kwanzaa was a real thing." Nope, our public library had the usual Kwanzaa-for-the-Kiddies thing in 2015. As long as there are white public school teachers and white librarians, there will still be Kwanzaa.

193
I *cannot* stand the charlatans screaming about the Rapture. IMHO Hal Lindsey (among others) is a complete fraud and jackass who's probably done more to turn people *off* of Christianity since 1965 than Dawkins, Harris, PZ Myers and a lot of other hateful atheists put together.
Posted by: qdpsteve at January 04, 2016 11:31 PM (ntObR)

Well, as a Catholic, we don't have this "rapture." It was pretty much made up by American Evangelicals sometime in the late 18th or early 19th century, I think, but I could be wrong about the date. So, for a good 1800 years there was no "rapture," but for some reason, now there is? Don't think so, but YMMV.

And the Book of Revelation? Most of it has already taken place. There's a lot toward the end that covers stuff left to come, but most of what is there describes events that already happened a long time ago. Helps to know a bit about numerology as it was understood at the time it was written, as well as the situation in the various churches to whom it was addressed and how they were handling their early forms of Christianity.

Or, you could scrap the whole shebang like the Clintons and start studying up on UFO's and who killed the Kennedys. I guess if you don't believe in something, you'll go for anything.

Posted by: tcn in AK at January 04, 2016 11:38 PM (+YMhA)

194He said he was driven out of a bar in Leamington after some students overheard his friend mention his name. 'These six guys just crowded round me and started shouting at me . calling me a rapist, a misogynist, and threatening me . I had to get out of there,' he said.

Can you imagine what a bunch of pathetic losers these six so-called "guys" must be to take up the cudgel of imaginary rape culture on behalf of the cowering little rape-fantasizing ladies?

Just wait until I interview one of these stupid pussy girlie-men for a job.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 04, 2016 11:38 PM (RU5ki)

195
Here's the Ishmael Reed poem I was talking about.
I dunno know what the heck he was really writing about, but me likey.

http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/poetry/beware.html

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 04, 2016 11:38 PM (ntObR)

196
Nope, our public library had the usual Kwanzaa-for-the-Kiddies thing in 2015. As long as there are white public school teachers and white librarians, there will still be Kwanzaa.
Posted by: gp

My favorite part of Kwanzaa-for-the-Kiddies is when Father Kwanzaa hands out microphone sets so all the good girls and boys can get away with murder by being an FBI informant.

198
"You can do the same thing with the buns after making hamburgers."

My mom always grilled the buns in the fat after cooking the patties.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at January 04, 2016 11:39 PM (rwJmd)

199
"well, coming up with a plan for keeping them in is better than a plan for herding them outside."

It happened minutes after they discovered the pit. No time to devise any plan to stop it.

Posted by: Darrell at January 04, 2016 11:39 PM (9ZWnT)

200 after you fry bacon, you can grill bread in the bacon fat in the frying pan.

You can do pretty much any damn thing you could do with lard, better with bacon fat. Fry eggs in it. Pop popcorn in it. Make a pie crust with it (you may--or may not--wish to strain it first). Brush a roasting chicken with it.

My grandmother used to keep a tin on the stove for pouring bacon grease into to save it. I can't bring myself to do that, but I do keep it in jars in the freezer for future use.

204
I like the "Big Rip" version of The End. It depends on the form "Dark Energy" takes (which may or may not be something real -- it could just be that empty spacetime has a cosmological constant, meaning empty spacetime is deSitter, not Minkowski, expanding).

In the Big Rip, this "stuff" whatever it is, gets stronger and stronger. In and "expanding" spacetime, you have a rip tide. Things pull apart. This effect gets stronger and stronger until no physical forces of matter can withstand it. Everything is ripped apart, down to the very quarks. In fact, the whole universe ends in a curvature singularity of infinite "rip tide".

Note this rip tide, as it is, is so small on the solar system scale that is indectable. It's even insignificant on the Galactic scale. It's only on the scale of the whole universe that it becomes significant.

208
165 The idea of the rapture-which is not an actual word in the NT-is only used in 1st Thessalonians 4;13-17 and nowhere else in Paul's writings.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 04, 2016 11:32 PM (M+RRn)

That passage can just as well refer to any end of life experience. It is taken out of context to "prove" the rapture. It really doesn't.

219
I watched this earlier tonight. Here's a neat compilation of launch failures from the 1940s to 2014:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9EnUQltR9A

Lots of good footage there, including some that are not commonly seen. I like the Indian launch tower that resembles the many arms of Shiva.

However, the last scene is a SpaceX Falcon 9 landing attempt on a barge on April 14, 2015 that failed, but the launch and mission were successful. The video must have been compiled before the Falcon 9 launch failure on June 28.

For the sake of completeness, here is the June 28 mishap:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqQ6jD52r_Q

Of course, SpaceX returned to flight on December 21 and knocked it into the upper deck with the first flight of the upgraded Falcon 9, the successful deployment of 11 satellites, and the first-ever soft landing of a first stage of an orbital rocket.

Best. Return to Flight. Evah.

Posted by: rickl at January 04, 2016 11:44 PM (sdi6R)

220
Bacon fat is also good for frying get apple slices. Finish with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon...or throw on a sammich with the bacon and a slice of good cheese.

Posted by: Garrett at January 04, 2016 11:44 PM (HLcYU)

221
79 There's an argument that the even/odd Trek rule holds through TNG movies if you include an extra movie in there... Galaxy Quest.
Posted by: Colorado Alex at January 04, 2016 11:34 PM (fC9RO)

Told you guys before, but I recently had to unfriend a very conservative Christian woman I knew at FB. She was constantly claiming the rapture was literally only moments away.

But I know this woman's background. Truth is she's had a sad life; her husband was killed not longer after she got married, and her only son is a complete gambling addict.

What she REALLY, and what I personally believe a lot of Rapture-awaiters really want, is for Jesus to hit the Big Red RESET Button In The Sky to magically send them to Heaven, so that they don't have to do any actual work themselves to improve their lot in life. Sort of a celestial version of the Big Welfare Check that they just know is coming in the mail.

234
I actually prefer the taste of 80/20 for hamburger patties as well. Leaner and I don't like it as well, and fatter and I don't like it as well.

I had to help my mother (85) make a batch of her famous vegetable soup this evening. I can't sing the praises of it enough, and I now know the recipe and procedures myself, but she's the boss of her kitchen, only now she needs help.

Anyway, it starts out with a base of mashed up ground beef in *cold* water. 80/20 seems to do the best there as well.

235127 What a ignorant thing to say-"I'm not going to ready any books by any men or any white men in 2016"
How about you just read about a book on Amazon and see if it interests you and then decide if you're going to read it-not based on the gender or ethnicity of the author?!!.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 04, 2016 11:26 PM (M+RRn)

I think we all know that she voted for Obama, and why. Same will go for Hillary. The fact that she enabled Bill's sexual predator behavior isn't going to matter at all.

242212 "well, coming up with a plan for keeping them in is better than a plan for herding them outside."

It happened minutes after they discovered the pit. No time to devise any plan to stop it.
Posted by: Darrell at January 04, 2016 11:39 PM (9ZWnT)

well, they could have blocked off the road they were exiting on. rockslide, demolition, they have heavy equipment. semi trailer was holding em in for more than a year.

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:42 PM (vb33c)

And the semi trailer there was probably going to keep holding them in. The problem is the other semi trailer which fell off the cliff, fell off the cliff, so they now had a way out which was right towards Alexandria. They moved the trailer blocking the other exit and then set off the flares to get them to follow the way they wanted. They had time to put up the block at the turn in the road and that was it. So really if they had taken the reinforce the quarry idea that some did suggest they would have been fucked.

Drinkin' and billin' (ah, the joy of small business) -- great time with Blano this evening at the range, planning for the eventual SCOAMF SHTF / SMOD / whatever. Time to get his family armed up too ;-)

Posted by: Steck at January 04, 2016 11:48 PM (ht/89)

245
"I'm sure there are all the multi-culti freaks that want to be all
compassionate toward Mexicans here, but if we controlled the border and
denied the Cartels the ability to smuggle drugs and make BILLIONS
selling them here, it would go a long way to making life better for the
average Mexican."

There's a book about the narcotraficantes, _Down By The River_, which points out that if you take the estimated size of the Mex narcotics trade, and divide it by the official Mexican GDP, it becomes clear that the narcos _are_ Mexico's economy. They dwarf farming, manufacturing, tourism and PEMEX all combined.

The book advances two theses.

The first is that if you were to completely shut down the border narco smuggling tomorrow, Mexico would collapse in four months, starting with the banking system, and there'd be even more chaos than there is now. Civil war.

The second is that the D.C. Beltway crowd have now realized this, and as much as they might huff and puff about "getting tough on drugs", they are terrified by what the second-order consequences would be if they ever actually did.

We could start a Moron Pre-Schooler Brigade. Does anybody know a kid named Mortar?

We had a cat named Powder.

Posted by: bergerbilder at January 04, 2016 11:49 PM (IeXP9)

252
"If you are Catholic, you cannot deny your marriage partner the "marital act" except for grave reasons. You gotta do it, or go directly to confession."

That explains how my cousin, who married a guy who left a Catholic seminary, wound up with eight kids

Posted by: Ignoramus at January 04, 2016 11:49 PM (rs5De)

253
I never understood all the hate about Meggy Mac around this place. I know she's a kook, but she's a really attractive gal. And not fat at all.
(Go ahead - attack me)

Posted by: Chi at January 04, 2016 11:43 PM (gQfxF)

I was about to call it a night, but now I'll just go make another drink and watch the fireworks.

Posted by: Blano at January 04, 2016 11:49 PM (C3E0x)

254136 Mrs928 has been on an experimental recipe binge for the last couple of weeks. Today she invent kaleslaw, which was actually quite interesting.
Posted by: Grump928(C) says Free Soothie!, with purchase of commenter of equal or greater value at January 04, 2016 11:28 PM (6TPa2)

Speaking of whether or not food is healthy, I invented something 2 days ago. I mixed up some brownie batter, put half in a pan, put on that a bag of mini Rolo's (chocolate covered caramel), then put the rest of the batter on top, and baked it.
Yum.

256
publius, I've heard of that theory as well. Dark matter is theorized because of all the missing gravitational mass that holds the galaxy together. Dark energy was theorized as the force that is propelling galaxies apart. For those that don't know, the Big Squeeze is the universe collapsing back to a singularity due to mass and gravity.The Big Freeze is that dark energy will propel all the matter in the universe apart until everything gets pushed so far away from everything else that everything, stars, gas, dust eventually just dies out.The Big Rip, now that is an interesting finale. Who knows. At this point it is all theory. And remember that Einstein himself said that even though his theory postulated black holes, he didn't think nature would allow them to exist.

I don't know if it's about improving your lot in life (Improving your lot if life sounds to me like getting a better job, not necessarily as spiritual growth in Christ)-as much as wanting to escape the bad stuff, which is understandable, but not something promised by Jesus. But I can understand why people saying the rapture is going too happen any minute now are annoying. It's as bad as people predicting when Jesus will return, when scripture tells us not to do that.

Went ahead and got a box of Quaker Grits last time I was at the market (yesterday). About the only things I know about 'em are that (a) they're made of corn, and (b) Polly Holliday made 'em famous as Flo on "Alice" back in the 1970s.

262He could create some with spittle and clay, but that would just look weird.Posted by: Insomniac - Pale Horse/Death 2016 at January 04, 2016 11:43 PM (kpqmD)

OK, let's get that straight. Isis used clay and Ra's spittle to make a snake that would harm Ra, so she could extort his real name to use in the magic to re-asemble Osiris, after Seth both locked him in a coffin Osiris won in a contest and drowned him in the Nile, AND dismembered him and scattered his bits to the corners of the world.

Right. And that is why the corn grows.

And has anyone done a linkage between Seth and the Sirrush in the Ishtar gate of Babylon, or Isis and the Snake goddess of Crete?

Posted by: Carol at January 04, 2016 11:30 PM (sj3Ax)Will do. I've known people who do much better than the doctors predict. There's hope.

Posted by: nerdygirl at January 04, 2016 11:53 PM (+lVUW)

267245
The second is that the D.C. Beltway crowd have now realized this, and as much as they might huff and puff about "getting tough on drugs", they are terrified by what the second-order consequences would be if they ever actually did.
Posted by: torquewrench at January 04, 2016 11:48 PM (noWW6)

There's also the strong possibility that American politicians are in on it.

Posted by: rickl at January 04, 2016 11:53 PM (sdi6R)

268217 @197
I never understood all the hate about Meggy Mac around this place. I know she's a kook, but she's a really attractive gal. And not fat at all.
(Go ahead - attack me)

Posted by: Chi at January 04, 2016 11:43 PM (gQfxF)

I believe its the combination of her being an insufferable twat daughter of backstab McCain, "I wasn't a Republican until my daddy ran for president!" and then the cleavage pictures of "Look at my tits" combined with her whining about men objectifying her.

But yeah if she weren't a chip off the old block no one would really care much about her and if you saw a photo it would be "yeah I'd probably hit it."

270
And the semi trailer there was probably going to keep holding them in. The problem is the other semi trailer which fell off the cliff, fell off the cliff, so they now had a way out which was right towards Alexandria. They moved the trailer blocking the other exit and then set off the flares to get them to follow the way they wanted. They had time to put up the block at the turn in the road and that was it. So really if they had taken the reinforce the quarry idea that some did suggest they would have been fucked.
Posted by: buzzion - Pinochet 2016! at January 04, 2016 11:47 PM (zt+N6)

well, I have not had a really good look at the quarry roads but they would have been better off to put their energy into temporarily blocking the road and coming up with a solution to keep em in there.

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:53 PM (vb33c)

271
Is this picture of Obama on Drudge for real? If so, wtf. That American flag lapel pin should be ripped right off his jacket.

http://tinyurl.com/jf6pvra

Posted by: gracepc at January 04, 2016 11:54 PM (OU4q6)

272
As he sat there, bearing the brunt of my righteous indignation and muttering responses like, "I never noticed," "I really don't think it's that big of a deal," and "I'll get it right next time," I saw his face gradually take on an expression that I'd seen on him a lot in recent years. It was a combination of resignation and demoralization. He looked eerily like our son does when he gets chastised. That's when it hit me. "Why am I doing this? I'm not his mom."

Could've just slapped her in the mouth and said "Shut up, beeyatch! I pay for the groceries around here! I'll buy whatever the fuck I want!"

273
If you are Catholic, you cannot deny your marriage partner the "marital act" except for grave reasons. You gotta do it, or go directly to confession.

He also thought it was cool that Catholics have beer at all their big celebrations. He'd never seen anything like that at his old Lutheran Church. Just coffee, and who needs that to unwind?

Took a couple of years, but yep, he's Catholic now.

Posted by: tcn in AK at January 04, 2016 11:45 PM (+YMhA)

The no withholding clause isn't just a Catholic thing at all.

Didn't hubby ever attend a Lutheran Bible study? I have yet to attend one that didn't have alcohol.

Posted by: Blano at January 04, 2016 11:54 PM (C3E0x)

274
Darrell (sock?) and yankeefifth, if you're arguing over TWD thing last season with the quarry and the zombies - no, the idea ofletting them out of the quarry and then herding them was obviously idiotic. They have heavy equipment (we saw it in use in previous episodes in their current location). Obvious thing to do was trench/dig out the access road, keeping the quarry an escape-proof trap.

The series has extremely lazy or mediocre writing when it comes to things like this. Painfully stupid, like the pretty girl being chased by the slasher in a horror movie tripping and falling at *just* the right moment. The framework provides lots of room for interesting ideas, but it's just implausible plot twists and implausible hackneyed soap opera most of the time.

Actors are good and many involved are getting rich on it, so there's that.

I can't ask anything really, because I'm not his pastor, but I expect Jesus could ask a lot more. :^) The Clinton are like many people who get so wealthy they become their own gods.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 04, 2016 11:54 PM (M+RRn)

276
Sort of a celestial version of the Big Welfare Check that they just know is coming in the mail.
Posted by: qdpsteve at January 04, 2016 11:46 PM (ntObR)

I am perhaps not the right person to speak with those who believe in such things as the rapture. I cannot understand a faith that is not logical, that denies natural law and assumes that God always works by miracles, outside of the system of nature that He created. Don't get me wrong: there are, indeed, miracles, but that is not the ordinary way in which God works.

The rapture does not appear anywhere in Scripture, or Tradition, but just appears. When I have questioned folks on this belief, I am told that it just is. There is no good rationale for it, nor a history that would lead me to believe it to be a fact. It just "is."

Unfortunately, for most Protestants, Church history begins sometime in the 17th century. It is just impossible for any discussion before that time period that isn't just about how awful the Catholic Church had become. Before that time, everything just becomes polemics.

I have tried mightily to understand, and to learn, and to see the rationale for various Protestant beliefs, but I am still at a loss. It is probably my fault for not seeing so clearly, but it confuses me.

I do apologize for any unpleasantness I have engendered by being so ignorant of Protestantism. I do not mean to belittle it. I know it has done great things for society and for individuals. I just don't get it.

285
It's as bad as people predicting when Jesus will return, when scripture tells us not to do that.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 04, 2016 11:51 PM (M+RRn)

It is just the same old heresy of gnosticism. Folks always want to know more than the next guy, and show off that they do. I indulge in that when I'm not paying attention. I always feel like an idiot afterward, too.

288
Darrell (sock?) and yankeefifth, if you're arguing over TWD thing last season with the quarry and the zombies - no, the idea ofletting them out of the quarry and then herding them was obviously idiotic. They have heavy equipment (we saw it in use in previous episodes in their current location). Obvious thing to do was trench/dig out the access road, keeping the quarry an escape-proof trap.

The series has extremely lazy or mediocre writing when it comes to things like this. Painfully stupid, like the pretty girl being chased by the slasher in a horror movie tripping and falling at *just* the right moment. The framework provides lots of room for interesting ideas, but it's just implausible plot twists and implausible hackneyed soap opera most of the time.

Actors are good and many involved are getting rich on it, so there's that.
Posted by: rhomboid at January 04, 2016 11:54 PM (QDnY+)

like the cut of your jib.

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 04, 2016 11:57 PM (vb33c)

289
TWD - nobody ever figures out that they could make a spears and work shifts popping zombie heads from on top of the wall, any of the walls/fences they have had.

I consider myself fortunate; I grew up in an ELCA Lutheran church that, at least as I recall, was largely devoid of politics and demonizing of other faiths. We were taught that Luther was a great guy, but that he also had great faults, and that a lot of our liturgy/etc was based on Catholic tradition, so it didn't make sense to belittle the RCC that much.

Unfortunately, some (though thankfully not nearly all) of that was messed up by a Sunday School teacher I had in my late teens, who was also a Rapture nut. He was absolutely convinced that by the year 2000, nuclear war with the Soviets was inevitable. If I ever see that guy again... well, it won't be pleasant.

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 04, 2016 11:57 PM (ntObR)

291I never understood all the hate about Meggy Mac around this place. I know she's a kook, but she's a really attractive gal. And not fat at all.(Go ahead - attack me)Posted by: Chi

299248 >>I never understood all the hate about Meggy Mac around this place. I know she's a kook, but she's a really attractive gal. And not fat at all.(Go ahead - attack me)Posted by: Chi

Most of the hate for Meggy Mac is because she's a vacuous idiot whose every word was fawned over by the media because of her last name and the fact that she was criticizing the right. The attacks on her weight and looks were just an easy avenue of attack.

She's not bad looking by general population standards but she's nothing special either. Yet we were supposed to view her like a princess anyway. Same for the banalities that a ghost writer managed to cobble into a published book for her. Full spectrum banal mediocrity - that's meggy mac in a nutshell.

Posted by: Maetenloch at January 04, 2016 11:59 PM (pAlYe)

300
y5, something with lots of $5s tucked in the side of her thong? Ooookay then... ;-)

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 12:00 AM (ntObR)

301
Actually buzzion I didn't think there were two ramps out of the quarry. Just the one. In any case, blocking it then digging out a stretch to cut it permanently was well within their capabilities, and the obvious course of action. Quarry was a miraculous godsend, totally implausible that they'd instead try to herd a zillion of 'em after letting them out of the quarry.

Don't think the writers have the talent to keep the pot boiling without constant reliance on implausible plot twists. But they keep it boiling their way, so good for them.

305 TWD - nobody ever figures out that they could make a spears and work shifts popping zombie heads from on top of the wall, any of the walls/fences they have had.

Posted by: Burnt Toast

That was my beef seasons ago. A Roman legion would have owned North America by now.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 12:01 AM (9YDUz)

306And not to beat on Megs too much -- tonight -- but she's worth millions thru her Mom and thru her Dad anyone who marries her gets at least a seat in the House. And STILL no man will put a ring on it.

308
oh yeah, why didn't the people in the luxury community have a few inner walls to retreat to in the event th outer wall is breached. even more, if some dunce is parading a herd of tens of thousands of zombies by your homes, how about having a few people watching in case anything goes wrong and having everyone ready, not just wandering around hoping everything works.

See, there is nothing. There ain't no thing at all wrong with a curvy gal.

But Meggy says some weird shit.

Posted by: Ricardo Kill at January 05, 2016 12:03 AM (rwJmd)

312
Unfortunately, for most Protestants, Church history begins sometime in the 17th century.

I think it depends on the Protestants and whether they have any interest in Church history. One of my professors for Church who was a Protestant did his dissertation on the beguine moment in medieval christianity and he knew a lot about RC. In fact, or classes on Church history didn't just begin with the Reformation and where back to early theological controversies in the church..

315
256: If you're interested in this, you might want to read about the "Cosmological Constant" (CC) and its history. Dark Energy is just the CC coming back.

In short, when Einstein first developed General Relativity, the governing equation of which is known as the Einstein Field Equations (EFE, which ain't no Romper Room math, BTW) predicted a dynamic universe. There couldn't be a static universe. It was either expanding without limit or it would collapse back in on itself (which depends on the initial conditions of your "Big Bang" starting event).

This was before Hubble by about 10 - 15 years. The external galaxies we know of today where "nebula" back then. We had no damn clue how big the universe was, and how matter was distributed on that enormous scale.

So Einstein came up with a fudge factor, the CC, to hold things in perfect balance and allow for a static universe.

Then came Hubble and the "expansion of the universe" (I put this in quotes because terms like this are all coordinate dependent, ie depend on which reference frame you adopt. In some "space is expanding". In others, not so much. This is because space and time, are well relative. The invariants are all the same, of course).

Einstein called this his "greatest blunder". He could have *predicted* the expansion of the Universe 10 years before Hubble, and that would have made his perceived prowess and genius all the more. But he thought the idea was just nuts.

But, over the past few decades, it's become apparent the expansion is accelerating. So the CC comes back, but not in the way Einstein originally intended it.

Note the question. Is the CC something real. Some new form of matter/energy that acts like a CC, or is it just the basic form of "reality", of empty spacetime.

You could put a bell on a pole dangling over a fire pit and the zombies would fall in and burn until the pit was full.

Posted by: eman at January 05, 2016 12:04 AM (MQEz6)

317Not over Meggie Muck's looks, or kookiness. None of that matters.HER MOM OWNS A FRIKKIN' BEER DISTRIBUTORSHIP, ya big dope! /LevinHow could you have failed to remember that, that very most important fact of all?And with that much beer, yeah, I'd hit her, too! *hic!*

And yet no man has married this beer dowry with some cushion for the pushin'.

That's ok, that's why you just tune 'em out. She'd definitely be one I'd have to get dizzied up before first though.

Posted by: Arson Wells at January 05, 2016 12:07 AM (UnJ7w)

324301 Actually buzzion I didn't think there were two ramps out of the quarry. Just the one. In any case, blocking it then digging out a stretch to cut it permanently was well within their capabilities, and the obvious course of action. Quarry was a miraculous godsend, totally implausible that they'd instead try to herd a zillion of 'em after letting them out of the quarry.

Don't think the writers have the talent to keep the pot boiling without constant reliance on implausible plot twists. But they keep it boiling their way, so good for them.

Posted by: rhomboid at January 05, 2016 12:00 AM (QDnY+)

Two ways out of the quarry. Both blocked by Semis. Rick gives his speech about the plan in front of one set, when the other set collapses and they begin walking out that way. The pull open the closer set so they could lead them that way. As he says "They're heading for home, We don't have choice. That's why they start shooting and making noise so they all turn and herd out that way.

332Note the question. Is the CC something real. Some new form of matter/energy that acts like a CC, or is it just the basic form of "reality", of empty spacetime.

No one has a clue.

Posted by: publius

I still don't buy that Dark Energy is a necessary thing to counter the invented Dark Matter. Too many propositions that just end up sounding like cosmological prostitution.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 12:08 AM (9YDUz)

333
Last comment on the utterly inconsequential topic, but TWD series also has had some comically amateurish continuity-editing failures. Funniest one was the guy ("Eugene" - long hair, great actor, funny) who (again, implausibly) claimed to know the "cure" - and this claim was actually taken seriously by people who were the only people on earth to actually know the truth.

They had personally been in the CDC with the last researcher before it self-destructed, and he had given them the executive summary. They were literally the best informed people alive, the only ones still breathing who had the actual inside story. But some nobody wanders up and tells *these* particular people, of all people, that *he* has the answer? And they make it their mission to take him to DC because of this claim? WTF?

It was if the writers of that and the next few episodes hadn't seen the first season or whenever it was. Even when Eugene confesses his claim is a put-on, there isn't any reaction. From, again, the only people alive who actually have direct knowledge of the best scientific understanding of the disease, and who of course would never have taken Eugene's claims seriously.

Posted by: publius (not Breitbart publius) at January 05, 2016 12:04 AM (dvuhZ) -------I'm not all that smart, but I'm trying to wrap my head around it. As an aside, I've decided that I have mass, therefore I have gravity. If I could park my body out in deep space my mass and gravity could bend light. If I were in the middle of a dust cloud, my mass and gravity could eventually create a star. This kind of stuff keeps me awake at night

338332 I still don't buy that Dark Energy is a necessary thing to counter the invented Dark Matter.

Is it to counter Dark Matter? I thought it was for "Hey, the universe expansion is accelerating? That takes energy! WTF?!?"

Posted by: Splunge at January 05, 2016 12:10 AM (iMxBJ)

339Two ways out of the quarry. Both blocked by Semis. Rick gives his speech about the plan in front of one set, when the other set collapses and they begin walking out that way. The pull open the closer set so they could lead them that way. As he says "They're heading for home, We don't have choice. That's why they start shooting and making noise so they all turn and herd out that way.
Posted by: buzzion - Pinochet 2016! at January 05, 2016 12:07 AM (zt+N6)

both routes were blocked by a pair of semis. when rick was talking one of the further pair of semis fell into the quarry. someone could have set up another block further up the road.

Posted by: yankeefifth at January 05, 2016 12:10 AM (vb33c)

340She's not bad looking by general population standards Posted by: Maetenloch

Below average. And for evidence, submitted are the average faces for various countries. Guy takes hundreds of pics and averages the results. There's probably a selection effect in his sample, but most of the women should be roughly Megs age.

http://tinyurl.com/qjbdlak

Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at January 05, 2016 12:11 AM (kdS6q)

341
I wonder what that wife does to her Children God help them, reminds me of Mommy Dearest, and my own Mother but when she drank she would be a lot worse. It's sad but my life was better when she died,

I think the Husband gave up and is just waiting for the kids to leave home then he will leave too.

343
Dark Energy and Dark Matter are not necessarily connected in any way.

Dark Energy is hypothesized to exist to explain the increased rate of expansion.

Dark Matter is hypothesized to exist to explain levels of gravitational attraction that can't be accounted for by baryonic matter.

Posted by: eman at January 05, 2016 12:12 AM (MQEz6)

344
Blurt it out -- it may even be one of the things I know way too much about.
Posted by: cthulhu
-------------------
I picked up a freezer yesterday.
Perfect size for me - maybe 2' wide & only 4' or so tall. 12 cubic feet?
But it won't "cold."
I plugged it in about 12 hours ago. I heard/felt the compressor turn on, but no cold. Can you charge this thing? Or is it just a boat anchor?

It is basically a box with wire racks at this point.If nothing else, i may turn it into a cold smoker - drill a 4" hole in the bottom for smoke to get in, a bunch of holes in the top for smoke to escape...

347
341 I wonder what that wife does to her Children God help them, reminds me of Mommy Dearest, and my own Mother but when she drank she would be a lot worse. It's sad but my life was better when she died,

I think the Husband gave up and is just waiting for the kids to leave home then he will leave too.
Posted by: Patrick From Ohio at January 05, 2016 12:11 AM (c4yY7)

352
It was if the writers of that and the next few
episodes hadn't seen the first season or whenever it was. Even when
Eugene confesses his claim is a put-on, there isn't any reaction. From,
again, the only people alive who actually have direct knowledge of the
best scientific understanding of the disease, and who of course would
never have taken Eugene's claims seriously.

Posted by: rhomboid at January 05, 2016 12:09 AM (QDnY+)

You would think that the visit to the CDC would be a talking point in later episodes.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 05, 2016 12:14 AM (T78UI)

353 Actually buzzion I didn't think there were two ramps out of the quarry. Just the one. Posted by: rhomboid

There were most definitely two; the rear ramp had a tractor trailer fall off one side and became an open avenue.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 12:15 AM (9YDUz)

354
Blano, isn't Burleson where the "Affluenza" Couch family is from, or where they live??

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 12:15 AM (ntObR)

355
"That's ok, that's why you just tune 'em out. She'd definitely be one I'd have to get dizzied up before first though."

Wait. You mean for the first time????
Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 04, 2016 11:32 PM (9YDUz)

I don't even remember it ever being released the first time around.

Posted by: nerdygirl at January 05, 2016 12:16 AM (+lVUW)

361
"Below average. And for evidence, submitted are the average faces for various countries. Guy takes hundreds of pics and averages the results. There's probably a selection effect in his sample, but most of the women should be roughly Megs age."
http://tinyurl.com/qjbdlak
-Posted by: Laurie David's Cervix at January 05, 2016 12:11 AM (kdS6q)

Ugh. She's in makeup, most of the time, but she's above average.

I have my own metrics and I'll bet a dollar to a donut that they're better than your example.

364
So I took my boy's for haircuts today. One of those chain places, inexpensive. So my 7 yo had his first haircut from a trannie. I didn't think they would work in such a low end place. I don't think my son noticed, he would have said something if he did... In front of him/her/xer/ xim or what ever they call themselves.

Posted by: lindafell de spair at January 05, 2016 12:17 AM (xVgrA)

365
buzzion, maybe that's the comic book? In the TV series, the quarry op is a deliberate one, discussed/debated in advance. The preparation is extensive. Nothing "goes wrong" to force their hand or change the timetable. Only the preposterously timely "Wolf" attack on the village disrupts the operation (and then only because the truck horn is stuck "on").

Could be remembering it wrong, but I don't recall the TV episode proceeding as you describe it. In the meeting, Rick and the proponents actually undercut their own case - if there's time to see erosion dumping one of the blocking semis out of the way, uncorking the quarry, there's plenty of time to add 10 more semis to the blockade, then dig out the road behind them. Kind of the first thing probably nearly everyone thought of when the problem was presented.

In any case, Alexandria is effed anyway (because apparently everyone suddenly forgot you could lure the herds away with noise just as they were orginally drawn to the walls - another recurring weakness to the writing, tried and true solutions are routinely forgotten whenever they would resolve the challenge do jour).

Posted by: rhomboid at January 05, 2016 12:17 AM (QDnY+)

366
Dark matter and Dark Energy are two different things, being significant on two vastly different ends of the scale of the universe.

Dark matter is "missing mass". The galaxies (including our own Milky Way) have "problematic" rotation curves. It means they are more massive than the visible matter would indicate. Now, you can modify gravity (the EFE of General Relativity) and there have been all sorts of attempts at that. Only problem is, in many cases these should show up with the solar system dynamics. We'd see slightly different behavior in the solar system demonstrating gravity was behaving differently that thought.

The other answer is "more mass there than we can see". Since we can't see it, it's dark. Hence dark matter.

And it's looking more and more like that has to be the case. For various reason, this stuff doesn't interact electromagnetically (why it is dark) or does so in some ridiculously weak fashion.

Dark energy comes into play on the cosmological scale (against which a galaxy is but a fly speck on a fly speck). As I was rambling about above, it's just another name for "something" that acts like the (in)famous Cosmological Constant.

I think she probably needs something to write about. Perhaps she blogs for a living. Yes, it sounds a little overwrought, but nobody that's married- even happily married- hasn't had spouses who get irritable and say stupid stuff and been irritable and said stupid stuff themselves.

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 05, 2016 12:18 AM (M+RRn)

372
160 Remember that people . . . have an empathy budget. And when you're a bitch or a dick to them their forbearance of your behavior out of love saps that budget until there's none left for any generosity and affection.

That goes for parents and children as well.

****

My father was an abusive prick who "taught" me "not to be so goddamn smart" by beating the crap out of me and, later in life, sending me long letters filled with scathing criticisms of my life and values.

(I suspect a deep resentment of my success in life was behind his bitterness.)

My sister, a 300-pound hulk of seething anger, regularly sends me emails accusing me of a multitude of sins, telling me she's doing it "so you don't wind up being like Dad."

Apparently the concepts of "irony" , "projection', and "identifying with the aggressor" are lost on her.

(I've broken off contact, as you might expect. She still emails, utterly perplexed at my silence. I understand why: if I refuse to engage, there's nothing new for her to criticize and jeer at. It's gotta be enraging to be ignored!)

Posted by: Noam Sayen at January 05, 2016 12:18 AM (FkgZk)

373Dark Energy and Dark Matter are not necessarily connected in any way.

Posted by: eman

Oh, my bad.

Posted by: E = MC˛ at January 05, 2016 12:19 AM (9YDUz)

374
Blano, isn't Burleson where the "Affluenza" Couch family is from, or where they live??

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 12:15 AM (ntObR)

Had to look it up, but yeah apparently, and where the drunk driving killing took place.

Posted by: Blano at January 05, 2016 12:19 AM (C3E0x)

375
Moe Lane's poetry satire is brilliant and perfect. He could win awards with that simple device. Its a good trick for kids forced to write poetry for a class.

[i[]Is it to counter Dark Matter? I thought it was for "Hey, the universe expansion is accelerating? That takes energy! WTF?!?"

377
Nope. It's just theoretical at this point. As in, not proven. Sorta like AGW.

When is a theory proven?

String theory/M theory/super-symmetry are just theory, unconnected to any empirical observation, and maybe any possible empirical observation. They're just clever speculation based on multiple layers of untested assumptions. OTOH, dark energy and dark matter are both supported by observation.

Don't worry about it. :^) I'm not asking people to change how they speak. I just don't care for the term. I wouldn't describe you as rude, MH. There have been some ONT where people need fireproof garments to post here.

I plugged it in about 12 hours ago. I heard/felt the compressor turn
on, but no cold. Can you charge this thing? Or is it just a boat
anchor?

It is basically a box with wire racks at this point.If nothing
else, i may turn it into a cold smoker - drill a 4" hole in the bottom
for smoke to get in, a bunch of holes in the top for smoke to escape...

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 12:12 AM (gQfxF)

You can charge it, but probably not worth it. Most likely not R-132 (automotive type), not likely to have charging ports either.DIY - you'll need an EPA cert to get the refrigerant (and most places will hassle you about it anyway), a saddle-clamp type charging valve, a gauge set, refrigerant... probably a couple hundred $ right there.You could throw it the back of the truck and get it done at a repair shop for less.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 05, 2016 12:22 AM (T78UI)

387
344
Blurt it out -- it may even be one of the things I know way too much about.

I plugged it in about 12 hours ago. I heard/felt the compressor turn
on, but no cold. Can you charge this thing? Or is it just a boat
anchor?

It is basically a box with wire racks at this point.If nothing
else, i may turn it into a cold smoker - drill a 4" hole in the bottom
for smoke to get in, a bunch of holes in the top for smoke to escape...

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 12:12 AM (gQfxF)

Hah! It's one that I know about!

Here's the dealio -- if it's got fittings for the refrigerant, you can make it work; if it's got crimped tubes, it's probably more work than you need to deal with.

Somewhere on (or in) it is a plaque that tells the flavor of refrigerant and high-side/low-side pressures. If you can find that, that would almost certainly be the service area -- and it's probable that you can find it by following the power cord. Look inside that area and see if you find crimped tubes or fittings on the coolant line.

Inventing possible explanations for observed phenomena that don't match the models is exactly how physics has advanced for a very long time. Quantum theory was once "invented crap;" now it is very well-confirmed.

393365 buzzion, maybe that's the comic book? In the TV series, the quarry op is a deliberate one, discussed/debated in advance. The preparation is extensive. Nothing "goes wrong" to force their hand or change the timetable. Only the preposterously timely "Wolf" attack on the village disrupts the operation (and then only because the truck horn is stuck "on").

Dude watch it again. It was a planned Op yes. But it was also done on the fly. They were not supposed to do it that day. It was only supposed to be a rehearsal run for the actual run. That's why Glenn had to go clear out that one store. It was said multiple times that it was only supposed to be a dry run, that they're not ready, that they don't have a choice but to do it now.

In any case, Alexandria is effed anyway (because apparently everyone suddenly forgot you could lure the herds away with noise just as they were orginally drawn to the walls - another recurring weakness to the writing, tried and true solutions are routinely forgotten whenever they would resolve the challenge do jour).

Posted by: rhomboid at January 05, 2016 12:17 AM (QDnY+)

And no they haven't forgotten. That was talked about several times. Going out and getting a vehicle to lure them away. One dumbass almost killed himself attempting it.

399
383: Oh, I'm just a Southern Redneck country boy who got a degree in Physics, which I didn't use one damn bit. The academic life ain't for me. You might say I loved science (why things do what they do) but I learned I didn't like scien*tists* too well. Well, leftard types, which the vast majority of them are.

402
Fenelon,
Maybe I missed something, but you do realize that when someone says "I'd hit it" that doesn't mean hit ON a person, right?
We're not talking about flirting here. Unfortunately, you are among the Horde, which means a bunch of the smartest heathens the interwebs could compile.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 12:26 AM (gQfxF)

403
It is basically a box with wire racks at this
point.If nothing else, i may turn it into a cold smoker - drill a 4"
hole in the bottom for smoke to get in, a bunch of holes in the top for
smoke to escape...

Posted by: Chi

What brand is the freezer, and how old is it? It may be that the type of coolant/ freon used in it is no longer legally obtained, and you can't recharge it (or have it recharged). Also, newer refrigerant (freon R114A or something newer) wouldn't work because it would not lubricate the compressor internal bearings (something the older freon were expected to do).

And yes, there is no relationship between types of freon used in a coolant loop in a freezer and dark matter. The government just made this all too complicated.

Which is another bone I have to pick. My wife and I just bought a new clothes washed, because the old one has a defective part that is too expensive/labor to fix (and it is fixable). Congress, in its infinite wisdom, has mandated washer efficiency, so now we get these low water/high efficiency washers, that wash clothes in a strange way (limited water usage).The government is interested in how we wash our clothes now. If the founders were alive, they'd be shooting by now.

407
qdpsteve,
M to F. I think they were just a tranvestite not a transsexual.
I got great customer service, he/she was very nice. They usually are to me for some reason. It doesn't really bother me. I don't agree with it but live and let live, c'est la vie!

Posted by: lindafell de spair at January 05, 2016 12:27 AM (xVgrA)

408
I'm tired. A day of jogging, shooting and drinking makes Blano a tired boy. Happy, but tired.

412
boy's for haircuts today. One of those chain places, inexpensive. So my 7 yo had his first haircut from a trannie. I didn't think they would work in such a low end place. I don't think my son noticed, he would have said something if he did... In front of him/her/xer/ xim or what ever they call themselves.
Posted by: lindafell de spair at January 05, 2016 12:17 AM (xVgrA)

417
Huh. Liberal friend on Facebook just popped out with a new disparaging term: ammosexual.

Posted by: Anachronda at January 05, 2016 12:29 AM (o78gS)

418Inventing possible explanations for observed phenomena that don't match the models is exactly how physics has advanced for a very long time.

I agree. I believe that we've reached pretty close to the limits of what our current understanding of science and methods can achieve, and now they're just making stuff up like Medieval alchemists. Hey, you can make money at it if your name rhymes with Mocking.

Dark Matter came about because the prevailing theory of the universe (big bang and expansion, then contraction in a cycle) was revealed to be impossible with the existing matter we know of. So scientists didn't say "well maybe we're wrong" they said "my grants rely on this being right, so how can i fit this round peg through a triangular shaped hole?"

419To which I offer the following as irrefutable proof of theory:
* Democrat Underground
* Daily Kos It's "dark matter" not "shart matter"!

Posted by: andycanuck at January 05, 2016 12:30 AM (DLIIY)

420
Yes, i do realize that. I knew it meant, "I'm making a pass at someone perhaps in the hopes of get into bed with them." I still don't like the term because to me hitting means....well, hitting even if you aren't actually hitting, which I assume people aren't

I suppose if I think of it as a fish hitting a fly cast it's more acceptable

426
I'm actually kinda creeped out that there's a poem about water hardness and etching here in the ONT 'cause I schlepped a 130 lbs box up two flights of stairs by myself this morning so I'd have a new dishwasher in my apartment.

Then I spent an hour this afternoon googling around about Minneapolis water stats, built-in softener settings, rinse aids, etc.

Had what I think was a transsexual working the drive-thru window at my nearby McDonalds, last summer. Looked an awful lot like a guy, but wearing makeup and had long nails. But was professional and courteous.

No. 2 Son is a huge Bowie fan. I thought I was, too, but I just listened to the music and learned whatever was printed in Rolling Stone.

He is a teenager with infinite time on his hands and all of the magic, so he knows way more about the career and the timing and the albums and the things.

We'd been trying to figure out when I had seen Bowie in Philadelphia. I was thinking '77 based on how long it took me to wear down my parents to let me do things. He knows the discography and the travel to Berlin and is telling me it was probably '76, especially when I tell him what I remember from the set list.

So I asked the machine of infinite knowledge. It turns out I saw him on March 16, 1976, and the set list is as I remember it, because there's a thing called setlist.fm that tracks these things.

A tractor with a flail (used to cut back scrub along highways etc) at about head height would be fun for a while. I need go back and see what they walked past in that equipment storage yard.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 05, 2016 12:35 AM (T78UI)

434
418 Inventing possible explanations for observed phenomena that don't match the models is exactly how physics has advanced for a very long time.

I agree. I believe that we've reached pretty close to the limits of what our current understanding of science and methods can achieve, and now they're just making stuff up like Medieval alchemists. Hey, you can make money at it if your name rhymes with Mocking.

Dark Matter came about because the prevailing theory of the universe (big bang and expansion, then contraction in a cycle) was revealed to be impossible with the existing matter we know of. So scientists didn't say "well maybe we're wrong" they said "my grants rely on this being right, so how can i fit this round peg through a triangular shaped hole?"
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at January 05, 2016 12:30 AM (39g3+)

No, Dark Matter is proposed to account for galaxies not flying apart due to their rate of rotation.

Dark Energy is proposed to explain the observed increase in the rate of expansion of the Universe.

Posted by: eman at January 05, 2016 12:35 AM (MQEz6)

435
Which observation confirmed Dark Energy?----Weft, I don't think Dark Energy has actually been confirmed. It's just a theory to explain the increasing rate of the expansion of the universe.

Posted by: Old Blue at January 05, 2016 12:35 AM (9iR5/)

436
Story at Breitbart that, of all people, Madonna's kids are estranged from her... because she's *too strict* of a parent.

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 12:36 AM (ntObR)

437
So... once the humans are all eaten in an area, what do zombies eat to survive? Are they just supposedly immortal? Do they continue to decay or just live forever half rotten? And don't they reek horribly? Seems like that would make them pretty easy to detect, rotting flesh and all.

438
Huh. Liberal friend on Facebook just popped out with a new disparaging term: ammosexual.

Posted by: Anachronda at January 05, 2016 12:29 AM (o78gS)

Why do libs confuse weapons with penises?

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 05, 2016 12:36 AM (T78UI)

439He also thought it was cool that Catholics have beer at all their big celebrations. He'd never seen anything like that at his old Lutheran Church. Just coffee, and who needs that to unwind?

Took a couple of years, but yep, he's Catholic now.
Posted by: tcn in AK at January 04, 2016 11:45 PM (+YMhA)

When we were kids there was an Irish parish in our area that had the best festival ever, every summer. They had it all, bingo, beer tent, chicken dinner, those "Round, and round she goes " wheels.
I won a nun doll at one of the booths, and the first thing I did was check under her habit to see if she was bald, and to see if she had underwear.

The observation that the universe coasted for 9 billion years after the Big Bang, continuously slowed down by the drag of gravity until about 5 billion years ago, when its mass density decreased to the point that a phase transition occurred where the effect of dark energy took over, causing it to begin to accelerate. It's been accelerating ever since. Something in "empty" space has to be driving this.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 05, 2016 12:37 AM (RU5ki)

444Yes, i do realize that. I knew it meant, "I'm making a pass at someone
perhaps in the hopes of get into bed with them." I still don't like the
term because to me hitting means....well, hitting even if you aren't
actually hitting, which I assume people aren't

I suppose if I think of it as a fish hitting a fly cast it's more acceptable

Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 05, 2016 12:30 AM (M+RRn)

Try, "Hit that like a cheap screen door in a hurricane",

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 05, 2016 12:38 AM (T78UI)

445
"Story at Breitbart that, of all people, Madonna's kids are estranged from her... because she's *too strict* of a parent."
-Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 12:36 AM (ntObR)

446No, Dark Matter is proposed to account for galaxies not flying apart due to their rate of rotation.

That might be a part of it, but I've always read that dark matter was to explain how the universe can possibly contract, since it appears to be accelerating apart rather than slowing. Unless they just gave up on that whole cyclic universe thing since it just wasn't working.

448
Walter, go to Amazon and buy the "Cascade fryer Boil out ."
It's the old school stuff for your home "fryer." Your glasses and dishes will get nice and clean in your new "fryer." I got six boxes, will last a long time since you only need about a tablespoon each load.

Great bit on an episode of The Simpsons from about 15 years ago, where Bart and Homer explore Catholicism. Marge is in a panic and her Protestant pastor tells her, "A different faith means a different afterlife."

Well, Marge imagines two heavens, Protestant Heaven and Catholic Heaven. In PH they're all keeping their upper lips stiff and playing tennis; in CH they're gorging on spicy food, having sex, and getting into fistfights.

453
BTW, it's sounds quite likely that I may have the exact same chest freezer -- it's about two feet front-to-back, about four feet side to side, and about 40 inches tall?

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 12:40 AM (EzgxV)

454
Re mass-energy equivalence, "E=mc^2". When you get into it, you'll have an ephiphany and realize it's not something "equivalent", that is you have this separate stuff you call "matter", which you can "convert" into this other, different stuff you call "energy".

Nope, they are the same. Mass is energy, and energy is mass. A burst of light, EM radiation, has mass. It curves spacetime (just a tiny little bit, of course, for any burst of radiation that wouldn't be so powerful you can't imagine it).

This "stuff" is, well, no one knows what the hell it is. Call it mass-energy. What you think of as "matter" is just "energy" sort of contained in a certain, concentrated way. What you think of as "pure energy" is just the same stuff, in a different form. But it's all the same stuff.

___________"Take a run at," was one I'd heard once and more than once.___________

We used to say "Cut one out from the herd." It was damned applicable, too.But The Chi is right. It's not "hitting on." It's Beavis/Butthead level stuff. Grunts.

Dumb question, but is there chance in the world that freezer has a Peltier unit?Have you actually seen coolant lines?

Posted by: Stringer Davis at January 05, 2016 12:41 AM (xq1UY)

459
Catholics think of themselves as the original church, but the idea of the reformation of course, was to get back to original writings, not to start new religions. Of course it was early scribes and others that maintained the texts, though many other traditions got added to the church over the centuries.

Gutenberg helped a lot, and Luther maybe didn't figure it all out. But at least people became able to study it for themselves and think freely. To me it is like our constitution, giving the individual his own unimpeded connection to God, with neither pope nor king demanding submission or payment for access. No rings to kiss or men to bow to.

Babylon Mystery Religion is a book that reveals how Christianity adopted many traditions from the pagan religions .... probably as a way of winning over converts. Easter bunnies, facing east for sunrise services, winter solstice and the trees, no fish Friday, even steeples and crosses. But the early texts were kept fairly pure, though how they decided which texts counted, is another issue.

I don't believe it is all perfect, but the Bible has great things contained in it. By God all things "cohere" ... the power that we call "forces". It's all beyond me, thankfully. I don't know about those Clinton ghosts, but God as the power that makes the forces like gravity keep forcing without diminishment makes as much sense as anything else.

461
How is dark matter supported by observation? It's a guess due to effects on observations not meeting the expected. Personally, I think we have something wrong in our understanding of how gravity and time effect light over galactic scales. Not, that there is some massive, unaccounted for phenomenon out there.

Although, the possibility that space isn't 'empty' - but full of plain matter -- asteroids, comets, ice balls, cold planets and dead suns; and the only clear areas are around stars which can sweep the detritus up - intrigues me.

Posted by: Jean at January 05, 2016 12:42 AM (fBkaR)

462This is to say nothing of the problem with "it". I'd hit "it" sounds
like you want to have sex with the short furry cousin on the Addams
Family.

464
This is to say nothing of the problem with "it". I'd hit "it" sounds like you want to have sex with the short furry cousin on the Addams Family.
Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 05, 2016 12:39 AM (M+RRn)
***
different strokes,
for different folks.

The observation that the universe coasted for 9 billion years after the Big Bang, continuously slowed down by the drag of gravity until about 5 billion years ago, when its mass density decreased to the point that a phase transition occurred where the effect of dark energy took over, causing it to begin to accelerate. It's been accelerating ever since. Something in "empty" space has to be driving this.

Posted by: Cicero

Wait, first DM and DE aren't connected, but now they are.

Further, a study for actual observation of DE?

OTOH, dark energy and dark matter are both supported by observation.

Posted by: Cicero

Where's that coming from?

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 12:43 AM (9YDUz)

466
See what your ISIS name would be if you enlisted. It's kinda like Chinese astrology!
http://iotwreport.com/whats-your-isis-name/

Posted by: andycanuck at January 05, 2016 12:43 AM (DLIIY)

467
..."This is to say nothing of the problem with "it". I'd hit "it" sounds like you want to have sex with the short furry cousin on the Addams Family."
-Posted by: FenelonSpoke at January 05, 2016 12:39 AM (M+RRn)

Now you've got it!

...and I've never like the terminology, but dudes and broads are what they are.

Hitting on is just making it really explicit to the girl or fish that you want to catch her. "Hi I'm here and I'm really interested in you".

Posted by: Bandersnatch at January 05, 2016 12:43 AM (1xUj/)

470
So... once the humans are all eaten in an area, what
do zombies eat to survive? Are they just supposedly immortal? Do they
continue to decay or just live forever half rotten? And don't they
reek horribly? Seems like that would make them pretty easy to detect,
rotting flesh and all.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor at January 05, 2016 12:36 AM (39g3+) That's the 'magic' part. They kind of shut down if there is no activity. The rot is delayed too. They will eat other animals (rats, pigs, deer, horses).I did note that zombies don't attract flies on TWD, they'll show flies on dead-dead corpses.

Posted by: Burnt Toast at January 05, 2016 12:44 AM (T78UI)

471
I'm troubled by the number of amateur physics geeks in this thread.

Posted by: Walter Freeman at January 05, 2016 12:44 AM (PJFUH)

472
"Story at Breitbart that, of all people, Madonna's kids are estranged from her... because she's *too strict* of a parent."
-Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 12:36 AM (ntObR)

What the kids meant to say is, "Mama is a crazy nutjob with way too much money, really really good lawyers, and PR people. We can't wait until we are 21.:

473
The observation that the universe coasted for 9 billion years after the Big Bang, continuously slowed down by the drag of gravity until about 5 billion years ago, when its mass density decreased to the point that a phase transition occurred where the effect of dark energy took over, causing it to begin to accelerate. It's been accelerating ever since. Something in "empty" space has to be driving this.

Posted by: Cicero (@cicero) at January 05, 2016 12:37 AM (RU5ki)

See if you can guess where you went wrong in your response. I'll give you a hint: it's the second word.

Posted by: Emmett Milbarge at January 05, 2016 12:45 AM (nFdGS)

474
Checking back in.
Hope it's all right
To come back in, only
To tell you good night.

♦

This universe
of evolving life
Is perfection's way
to experience strife.

Keep faith as you suffer,
And keep kickin' ass,
Secure in the faith
That all this, too, shall pass.

What dark energy is, is the great mystery of cosmology right now. My guess is that even a complete vacuum of empty space -- no matter, no radiation -- is itself "something" but so far no one has figured out a way to detect what that something is.

484
Writing in a blog, he argued that the overwhelming majority of people 'don't have to be taught to not be a rapist' - and that men inclined to commit the crime would be unlikely to attend such a workshop.

----

Well, then, they could just call it what it is: A Virtue Signaling Session.

Guys who show up will show that they care! It's almost as helpful as "hashtag caring!"

486What dark energy is, is the great mystery of cosmology right now. My guess is that even a complete vacuum of empty space -- no matter, no radiation -- is itself "something" but so far no one has figured out a way to detect what that something is.

Posted by: Cicero

Oh, so not observed. Ok.

Well, thanks.

Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 12:49 AM (9YDUz)

487
A lot of people don't know, Madonna isn't just a singer; she also owns her own record label and probably numerous other entertainment ventures, so she's a producer as well.

Wouldn't surprise me if her net worth approaches $1 billion by this time.

490See if you can guess where you went wrong in your response. I'll give you a hint: it's the second word.

Observation?

You can observe far back in time because of the time it takes for light to reach us. The variations in the red-shifting of galaxies observed at different distances tells us how fast they were moving away from us at different periods in the past.

492
446 No, Dark Matter is proposed to account for galaxies not flying apart due to their rate of rotation.

That might be a part of it, but I've always read that dark matter was to explain how the universe can possibly contract, since it appears to be accelerating apart rather than slowing. Unless they just gave up on that whole cyclic universe thing since it just wasn't working.
Posted by: Christopher Taylor at January 05, 2016 12:38 AM (39g3+)

No, the bang-crunch-bang model was no more special than any other one. The curvature of the Universe was determined to be flat. No crunch.

Dark Matter was indeed proposed to explain measurements of star speeds as they whipped along with their rotating galaxy. They were going really fast and there was not anywhere enough ordinary matter in the galaxy to let that happen. So either gravity was wrong or there was matter there that was not like the matter out of which we are made. Simply, not made of atoms.

Posted by: eman at January 05, 2016 12:51 AM (MQEz6)

493
Posted by: Jean at January 05, 2016 12:42 AM (fBkaR)---I was watching a program on Discovery about a physicist who had mapped areas of dark matter due to gravitational effects on the galaxy. It was pretty interesting. He had accounted for all the physical objects that we could detect.

On another note, I'm fascinated by black holes. Most mainstream physicists maintain that the center of a black hole is a singularity, yet every mathematical construct that they can come up with fails at the singularity. Quantum physics comes up with an answer of infinity times infinity times infinity forever. Einstein's physics just comes up with infinity. The problem comes up with dividing by a radius of zero. A conundrum to be sure.

Posted by: Old Blue at January 05, 2016 12:51 AM (9iR5/)

494
It won't be a member of the Horde that comes up with a unified theory. While you folks are good at a lot of shit?

...bitching, shooting, moving, patching and restoring are the best of them. In that order.

495 What dark energy is, is the great mystery of cosmology right now. My guess is that even a complete vacuum of empty space -- no matter, no radiation -- is itself "something" but so far no one has figured out a way to detect what that something is.
Posted by: Cicero

So, God.

Posted by: Jean at January 05, 2016 12:51 AM (fBkaR)

496
I'm troubled by the number of amateur physics geeks in this thread.
Posted by: Walter Freeman
-------------

As I understand it, there isn't any actual observation, all there is, is unexplained things which a theory about dark matter seems to make more sense of than anything else at the moment. But as I said earlier, we're up against the edge of what science can know right now. Its like cave men staring at the sky and trying to figure out what clouds are.

Until we can get out there and learn more about space and (I believe) gravity, we're pretty much just groping around.

505
DE is just a term of art, the second coming of the cosmological constant. If it's a CC, it just means that "empty" spacetime is "expanding". That is, the CC is a term on the left hand side of field equations. You've got a big zero on the right side, which is the "stuff" we call mass-energy distribution.

You can move that term to the right and say, hey, this could be some sort of new "stuff" (which acts like negative mass and negative "pressure" such as it is in the stress-energy tensor). Somebody came up with "dark energy" as term for this new stuff, whatever it is.

It could just be the way spacetime is. Or it could be new stuff. Nobody knows.

Some proposed forms of the "new stuff" gives us the Big Rip I first mentioned. Some does not.

508
"This "stuff" is, well, no one knows what the hell it is. Call it mass-energy."

It is over my head ... but that "God particle" they thought they found ... I guess the point is that sort of energy becomes the atoms that assemble to become matter as we know it. It is still protons, electrons, neutrons ... but in that form the energy has "mass".

I was a chemistry major for a couple years ... I guess they still teach the different shells of electrons, s, p d f? That's a guess ... lol. Beer and frisbee were my real majors for a couple years. heh

But mass is made up of energy pieces that manifest themselves as solid, liquid or gas ... even if there is no solid "thing" really there, just a family of energy form called atoms, posing collectively as real stuff. or something

Posted by: Illiniwek at January 05, 2016 12:53 AM (5Gpe2)

509
In Search of Shrodinger's Cat is a good book. Read it when I was going through Nuclear Power School. Fine for the layman as well. In search of Shrodinger's Kittens is ok as well

Posted by: Zakn at January 05, 2016 12:54 AM (d2pTe)

510
"A lot of people don't knowcare, Madonna isn't just a singer; she also owns her own record label and probably numerous other entertainment ventures, so she's a producer as well.

1) I realized I was getting a bit older when, at the University where I work, I stopped eyeing the coeds during move-in and noticed my attention shifting to their mothers;

2) The amount of pure, refined charm a man can bring to bear is in inverse relation to the amount of time in which he might make the best and most dastardly use of it. Ahh, to know in my 20's what I know in my 40's.....

515
31 I am watching a very depressing show on cable called "Cartel Land", about things on both sides of the border, fighting smuggling, coyotes (human smugglers) and the drug cartels (in Mexico).

I'm sure there are all the multi-culti freaks that want to be all compassionate toward Mexicans here, but if we controlled the border and denied the Cartels the ability to smuggle drugs and make BILLIONS selling them here, it would go a long way to making life better for the average Mexican.

I think. Sure, I could be wrong.
Posted by: Bossy Conservative...now older and senile at January 04, 2016 11:06 PM (+1T7c)

If it wasn't drugs, it would be something else that is smuggled across the border.

The cartels have also been smuggling people across the border. If we legalized weed and coke, then they would be smuggling crystal meth. Raise taxes on cigarettes and they will smuggle them. They will smuggle whatever they can make a buck off of.

519
God Particle dude was the patron saint of my high school. Saw him speak several times during my time there. Spent a few weekends kickin' around Fermilab too.

Posted by: Walter Freeman at January 05, 2016 12:57 AM (PJFUH)

520
Remember that long post we had two or three weeks back when that PR firm went out of business because all the women quit because their boss was such a lech? He's the top PR guy for SJW causes? Apparently, men who pretend to be sympathetic to feminism are usually rapey horndogs and the womyn put up with it in order to advance feminish (read: keep abortion going strong). It's really a perfect setup for a certain kind of guy, especially since you've got a better than 90% shot you won't be paying child support.

528
Raise taxes on cigarettes and they will smuggle them. They will smuggle whatever they can make a buck off of.
Posted by: Ashley Judd's Puffy Scamper formerly MrCaniac, Stormtrooper Appreciation Council at January 05, 2016 12:56 AM (Z7G74)

The Russian mob does a brisk business in bringing in untaxed cigarettes from Canada into New York, especially NYC. They also collect tax money on gas and diesel and then short the city and the state.

531
509
In Search of Shrodinger's Cat is a good book. Read it when I was going
through Nuclear Power School. Fine for the layman as well. In search of
Shrodinger's Kittens is ok as well

Posted by: Zakn at January 05, 2016 12:54 AM (d2pTe)

How is "In Search of Schrodinger's Dead Mice the Little Shit Left Under the Couch or Someplace When It Got Done Torturing Them"?

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 01:00 AM (EzgxV)

532and now they're just making stuff up like Medieval alchemists.Posted by: Christopher Taylor^^^This, to the nth.Ever since some Viennese/Weimar lickasack equated "relativity" with "relativism."May have been Stefan Zweig. All the mathboys want to run with the cool kids, so they keep doubling down, coming up with more better reasons why Dad Newton doesn't get to make the Rules anymore.

They piss me off mainly because they don't credit Newton's sense of alchemy.His action-at-a-distance was way spookier than theirs. They're all trying to do Cartesian physics.

She lost her firstborn son at 11 months (that's when I lost my faith), has endured all manner of hell on earth since then, and is now dealing with her husband's cancer.
But she has never once faltered in her faith, her belief.

If I could bottle you up & sell the formula, I'd be rich enough to reanimate Reagan for 2016.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 01:01 AM (gQfxF)

534
DM is tricky to directly detect because it does not interact strongly with matter or energy.

Folks are looking for it. Once in a while, they hope, a DM particle will clonk into a regular particle and the regular particle will say ow! We can detect the ow and from it learn about the DM particle that caused it.

Posted by: eman at January 05, 2016 01:01 AM (MQEz6)

535And [missing] certain articles of clothing.When I got drunk at college, I woke up with more articles of clothing on me.

BTW, Babinski eats Dirac for breakfast and defecates Clarke-Maxwell.

Posted by: dr amy farrah fowler at January 05, 2016 01:01 AM (DLIIY)

536The scientist who can completely explain and be able to manipulate gravity will be the richest person in the history of the universe.

If its like most stuff, it will be a big team and guys contributing from all around the globe bit by bit, not one mad scientist in a lab yelling eureka. But I firmly believe that's the wall we're up against: until we get that one unlocked, we're about done with what new we can figure out.

That won't stop the speculation and guesswork. And a lot of it will work, more or less. I mean, physicians got by for centuries on the bodily humors theory and it worked, more or less.

538
"The Russian mob does a brisk business in bringing in untaxed cigarettes from Canada into New York, especially NYC. They also collect tax money on gas and diesel and then short the city and the state."
-Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes now franchising Lulu Snackbars at January 05, 2016 12:59 AM (kXoT0)

Indian reservations have been taking advantage of this for quite awhile. Those savages are part of this...

542
@Old Blue: Yup. Large vats of dry cleaning fluid in underground caves. Wait long enough and detectors will register a few pings.

Posted by: Walter Freeman at January 05, 2016 01:05 AM (PJFUH)

543
CT, I truly believe that unlocking the key to gravity will open up whole new worlds. You may be correct on little bits being learned here and there rather than one person yelling Eureka!

Posted by: Old Blue at January 05, 2016 01:06 AM (9iR5/)

544
Oh, there's been various "dark" whatsits all through the history of physics. I'll give you a big one: nuclear forces/energy. Totally unknown before the early 20th century. Why the sun (and the earth) couldn't be more than a few million years old, because the only thing known to power said sun was heating caused by gravitational contraction.

Well, turned out there was a big source of unknown power there. Nuclear fusion.

Then another bit of "dark matter" was neutrinos. A ghost particle that was unobserved (because it was so weakly interacting). It had to be there, otherwise conservation of energy was being violated in nuclear reactions. Either conservation of energy was out, or there was some unobserved, unknown particle being expelled. Enrico Fermi was the proponent of this "dark matter", and in the day, one of his papers on it was rejected as too crazy, too speculative.

And lo and behold, that bit of dark matter of the day, the neutrino, was discovered. Fermi was right. His dark matter of the day was found.

547Oh, there's been various "dark" whatsits all through the history of physics. I'll give you a big one: nuclear forces/energy. Totally unknown before the early 20th century. Why the sun (and the earth) couldn't be more than a few million years old, because the only thing known to power said sun was heating caused by gravitational contraction.

If you have sons, tell them that charm and manners are an unbeatable combination. Ol Rico Suave may look hot, but, if he acts like a pig, then the women worth having will pass him by.

How I judge a guy on a date:

Is he polite to the waitstaff?

Does he have reasonable table manners-? I don't expect everyone to know which fork goes with what, but, eating neatly goes a long way.

Does he leave his phone put up? Mine is ringer off and in my purse--it's only polite.

Can he pay a nice compliment without being skeevy? Hey, I dressed up, so a simple " Don't you look nice." makes me feel good.

I am old enough that I expect doors to be open or held, help with my coat if is not a super casual date, an umbrella offered if he has one, and for him to move to the side of the street closest to traffic.

551If its like most stuff, it will be a big team and guys contributing from all around the globe bit by bit, not one mad scientist in a lab yelling eureka. But I firmly believe that's the wall we're up against: until we get that one unlocked, we're about done with what new we can figure out.

You guys are going to be shocked when you figure out how easy it is...

Posted by: Captain Togram at January 05, 2016 01:09 AM (fC9RO)

552
OK, Horde, I've really loved this discussion, but it's time for bed. See you on the flip side.

Posted by: Old Blue at January 05, 2016 01:09 AM (9iR5/)

553All I know is that traveling twice the speed of sound, it's easy to get burned.

Sure, if you're eight miles high.

Posted by: Byrds at January 05, 2016 01:09 AM (YJmuy)

554
541
"How is "In Search of Schrodinger's Dead Mice the Little Shit Left Under the Couch or Someplace When It Got Done Torturing Them"?"

-Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 01:00 AM (EzgxV)

It is better than you think, until you realize that there is no cat.

Posted by: Slapweasel (Cold1), (T) at January 05, 2016 01:04 AM (OQ9R7)
541
"How is "In Search of Schrodinger's Dead Mice the Little Shit Left Under the Couch or Someplace When It Got Done Torturing Them"?"

566
The Russian mob does a brisk business in bringing in untaxed cigarettes from Canada into New York, especially NYC. They also collect tax money on gas and diesel and then short the city and the state.
Posted by: Sherry McEvil, Stiletto Corsettes now franchising Lulu Snackbars at January 05, 2016 12:59 AM (kXoT0)

If the Democrats get their wish, the cartels and Russian mob will be doing a very brisk business in smuggling firearms.

575
My TV channel surfing landed me on the Late Late show with some new Scottish host who's not Craig Ferguson.

Now if I could put the rather large breasts of one guest (Sarah Silverman -- they're Yuuuge now) onto the body of the New New Thing guest sitting next to her (Alicia Vikander - Ex Machina / Danish Girl) I'd really have something. Wow!!

Given the German predilection for machine tools, I guarantee that after hours, they are making Glock/Uzi knockoffs in many a machine shop. Europe will not continue to be a gun free zone. I wouldn't live there and take public transportation, it's the Wild East there now.

Overall he's good but been getting way too political in his opening monologue. So I always try to tune in to his show 15 minutes late.

Posted by: qdpsteve at January 05, 2016 01:17 AM (ntObR)

580
567 But as I said earlier, we're up against the edge of what science can
know right now. Its like cave men staring at the sky and trying to
figure out what clouds are.

Until we can get out there and learn more about space and (I believe) gravity, we're pretty much just groping around.

Posted by: Christopher Taylor

That edge and that groping shouldn't be mistaken for actual knowledge, right?

Like phenomena that can't be replicated under the same set of instrumentation and methods, right?
Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 01:13 AM (9YDUz)

We don't have to go anywhere.

The Universe is flooding us with information.

We just need to gather it and use it to increase our knowledge and undersranding.

The science done in a chemistry lab is different than the science done in an observatory, but they are both science.

Posted by: eman at January 05, 2016 01:18 AM (MQEz6)

581
So, in the history of physics, we have new stuff that's been proposed to explain empircal observation. Some has panned out, some has not. So what are we to conclude. Any new stuff must be not real and fantasy, or all new stuff is real?

The answer is, it could be either. Keep on trucking and find that answer. Find some way to empirically rule it out or in. And that's just what is being done.

From the state things, dark matter is looking more and more like something real. They look at all sorts of modified gravity, and they just don't hold up.

There's observational evidence, which someone above alluded to, of galaxy collisions, showing "something" with mass and gravity seems to sort of cruise on through, while the light matter, the stuff we can see, interacts with itself.

It's looking more and more like there is something unknown with mass and gravity that is all clumped in the galaxies.

583I am old enough that I expect doors to be open or held, help with my coat if is not a super casual date, an umbrella offered if he has one, and for him to move to the side of the street closest to traffic.

If you wear pants, why would any gent bother?
Posted by: weft cut-loop at January 05, 2016 01:20 AM (9YDUz)

Well, it's a subtle thing, but, when a woman is helped with her coat, the man gets to stand nice and close while she flips her pretty hair up over the collar and across his hands, and he gets a whiff of the warm perfume from the nape of the neck.

602Well, it's a subtle thing, but, when a woman is helped with her coat, the man gets to stand nice and close while she flips her pretty hair up over the collar and across his hands, and he gets a whiff of the warm perfume from the nape of the neck.

#1 - not nearby enough (and the ones that are closer just don't matter)
#2 - sure. I can cut off the green part, right?
#3 - see answer to #2
#4 - somewhere around here, yes. I haven't seen it in at probably 5 years, though...

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 01:31 AM (gQfxF)

607
In Hindu Heaven, it is indeed very very hot, but we like it, beef, ah beef, here the cows eat YOU.

623426 I'm actually kinda creeped out that there's a poem about water hardness and etching here in the ONT 'cause I schlepped a 130 lbs box up two flights of stairs by myself this morning so I'd have a new dishwasher in my apartment.Then I spent an hour this afternoon googling around about Minneapolis water stats, built-in softener settings, rinse aids, etc.*shakes his head*Posted by: Walter Freeman at January 05, 2016 12:32 AM (PJFUH)

Heh. The original text came from a Kenmore dishwasher manual. I figured if you can make modern poetry out of that, you can do it with anything.

626
The Great Holiday Diversion of 2015/2016 is finally over, and tomorrow I get to resume Trying to Get My Shit Together. Should be interesting. Things like my cellphone blowing up and having to keep the old one to access my calendar; or resetting all my passwords to things on post-it notes, then having to clear the post-it notes out-of-the-way in a hurry so we could put up a tree....

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 01:44 AM (EzgxV)

627
Addendum: it looks like a Commons committee of MPs (now) selects the S-a-A although that was undoubtedly formed with a Conservative majority of MPs on the panel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamal_El-Hajji

Posted by: andycanuck at January 04, 2016 11:30 PM (DLIIY)

Well, to play Devil's Advocate for a moment, even Winston Churchill said that individual muslims can "show great bravery in service to the Crown" or words to that effect. So, if the individual chosen is a person of quality, that supersedes his religious affiliation, which may not be that strong.

But, given the dhimmitude of the present Powers that be, I have doubts.

Get some rest, Arlo. You're due to play a concert date here on the MS coast in a few weeks (50th Anniversary Tour of Alice's Restaurant, the poster explains!).

Been milking that same cow for 50 years. Sheesh.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 05, 2016 01:55 AM (gyKtp)

635
Heh. The original text came from a Kenmore
dishwasher manual. I figured if you can make modern poetry out of that,
you can do it with anything.

Posted by: Maetenloch at January 05, 2016 01:42 AM

Thus proving that you're hip. You have The Gift, daddio.

Posted by: otho at January 05, 2016 01:56 AM (EWg9n)

636
She's not bad looking by general population standards but she's nothing special either. Yet we were supposed to view her like a princess anyway. Same for the banalities that a ghost writer managed to cobble into a published book for her. Full spectrum banal mediocrity - that's meggy mac in a nutshell.

Posted by: Maetenloch at January 04, 2016 11:59 PM (pAlYe)

I'd pork her as long as I was sure she didn't know my real name.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 05, 2016 01:58 AM (cKwwS)

637 Heh. The original text came from a Kenmore
dishwasher manual. I figured if you can make modern poetry out of that, you can do it with anything.

640Get some rest, Arlo. You're due to play a concert date here on the MS coast in a few weeks (50th Anniversary Tour of Alice's Restaurant, the poster explains!).

Been milking that same cow for 50 years. Sheesh.

Heh. I just saw him on a PBS thing in which he did Alice's Restaurant. As soon as I saw it in the listing I told my GF "oh, this is going to be a fundraiser, because every time it's such Boomer Bait it's a fundraiser".

Which it was. And it's really hard to bring any surprises to a song that everyone in the audience knows by heart, inflection by inflection.

That said, I still love me some Arlo. Saw him four or five times, a couple with Pete Seeger. What was important to me in my yute remains important to me.

You got her phone number? I am losing my hearing, so listening to her would not be a burden for long. And she's heir to a beer fortune? Tell me more.

Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 05, 2016 02:02 AM (cKwwS)

642
I'd pork her as long as I was sure she didn't know my real name.
Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon
-----------------
I've been saying it here for years - it is perfectly acceptable to stick your dick in crazy. Just don't let crazy know where you live.

645
I plugged it in about 12 hours ago. I heard/felt the compressor turn on, but no cold. Can you charge this thing? Or is it just a boat anchor?

It is basically a box with wire racks at this point.If nothing else, i may turn it into a cold smoker - drill a 4" hole in the bottom for smoke to get in, a bunch of holes in the top for smoke to escape...

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 12:12 AM (gQfxF)

If the compressor runs, but no cold, then it has lost its charge of freon planet-saving green refrigerant. Prolly cost more to recharge than replace.

If I were you, I'd just fill up the yard inflatables with helium and
let Snoopy friends fly away. That way, you don't have to worry
about storing them for another year!

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 01:48 AM (gQfxF)

Funny, you should mention 'em....

(1) they all got put in the attic on Sunday; and (2) there's not a Snoopy in the bunch.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 02:08 AM (EzgxV)

647
640 >> ... Saw him four or five times, a couple with that dirty commie-pinko Pete Seeger.

FIFY, Bandersnatch

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 05, 2016 02:08 AM (gyKtp)

648A new federal guidance for employers illustrates the Catch-22 situation that immigration law creates for them: Businesses cannot employ anybody who is not legally residing in the U.S., but trying to determine if any of their employees are not legal residents can result in the business facing a federal discrimination lawsuit.

Chances are
the freon has leaked out or is at too low a pressure to work right
anymore. And since it is a sealed system, you can't just add a can of
freon to it.

Yeah, it's toast.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 05, 2016 02:00 AM (gyKtp)

Actually, there can be several things wrong with it -- but if the basic compression/evaporation system isn't available to test, it's impossible to diagnose 'em. For instance, you can have a bad compressor but full fluids.

Hi, btw. Did it snow up there today?
I was wearing shorts a week ago, and today it snowed here. Crazy.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 02:13 AM (gQfxF)

651
There was a story out of San Diego a few years back where a husband was in just such a relationship. Finally one night she sent him out to pick up something at the drug store and the haranguing went on as he was backing out of the garage. Suddenly he just floored the gas pedal and pinned his wife against the wall killing her instantly. When the police finally came the husband was sitting on the garage floor repeating over and over, "I just wanted it to stop...I just wanted it to stop...

Women take note.

Posted by: Funeral Guy at January 05, 2016 02:15 AM (p0zHt)

652
Really? I didn't see Snoopy in his airplane in one of those pics?
Huh...

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 02:16 AM (gQfxF)

653
"You got her phone number? I am losing my hearing, so listening to her would not be a burden for long. And she's heir to a beer fortune? Tell me more."
-Posted by: Alberta Oil Peon at January 05, 2016 02:02 AM (cKwwS)

667
For anyone who missed the reference -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfHnzYEHAow

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 02:36 AM (EzgxV)

668
We have some competition. Around the corner, there's a 9' inflatable Santa that drops its drawers with "Merry Xmas" written across its boxers.
Posted by: cthulhu
--------------
Directly behind me, on the next street over, there is a 20 foot tall Rudolph.
Looks like maybe 5 or 6 pieces of plywood, at least. Very cool.

I was tempted to make something similar, but then i realized that i don't even have the give-a-fucks left to get out of bed in the morning, much less care about Christmas decorations.

671Get some rest, Arlo. You're due to play a concert date here on the MS coast in a few weeks (50th Anniversary Tour of Alice's Restaurant, the poster explains!).

Been milking that same cow for 50 years. Sheesh.

Posted by: GnuBreed at January 05, 2016 01:55 AM (gyKtp)

He must have studied under Chubby Checker!

That was one ridiculous movie. Though I have to say that I did really like the song Arlo sang at Woodstock that made it on the film. He was babbling incoherently before it (as acid will do to you) but it was a really nice tune. "Hey, Mister Customs Man ..."

673
Slap, go to sleep, man.
The closest ledge is about one foot off the ground.
Worst I could do is sprain an ankle. I'm just sayin' that life sucks is all.
I love you and appreciate you. Now go to bed.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 02:45 AM (gQfxF)

674
Always figured the extra mass was light hiccuping between wave and particle and hence not observable but yielding mass.
That's it folks. Only good for one crackpot theory a night.

Posted by: Man from Wazzustan at January 05, 2016 02:46 AM (FtrY1)

675
670
I need sleep, you bastard and I'll stay awake as long as it takes to talk you off that ledge.

And, now, you get a spankin' -- who the fuck are you to be damning good people? He spooked you -- and, Lord knows, I've been spooked and done stupid shit -- and you alerted-up. All to the good. He didn't do it to jerk you around and he's been responsive to your concerns. Calm down and rest easy, and know we love you dearly.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 02:55 AM (EzgxV)

680
Yeah, cooth. I get a little pissed when I hear shit like that. He should know better.

I get that -- life is the ultimate gift, without which all other gifts are useless. But we're all frustrated and upset and prone to indiscreet orations.....and need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Rest easy, tiger....

687
Thanks to Lauren, I've finally decided: yes, Kwanza is a real thing, and now that's decided, we can all start asking whether Christmas is necessary and whether we should have been cannibalizing Jesus all these centuries, because, man, that's kind of fucked up.

But thank you for caring so much. Seriously. You are a damn good man. I consider myself fortunate to have you as a friend.

Now, go to sleep, Moron.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 03:01 AM (gQfxF)

Don't feel too bad, or I might be compelled to do something stupid.

It is one of the wonders of the age that we can forge such bonds of friendship and concern across the barriers of space and time.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 03:10 AM (EzgxV)

689
Cth, you know what would be hilarious?
If Slap called in a "welfare check" on me (I know he has my name & phone #, but maybe not address).

I would end up in jail again! Yes, there is a warrant for my arrest right now - because I missed that court date - for not cutting my grass when the city dickhead told me to 3 months ago. (He had to walk around my lawnmower & gas can to get to my porch)

Didn't help that I cussed at him like a hooker and kicked him off my lawn, I guess.

If Slap called in a "welfare check" on me (I know he has my name phone #, but maybe not address).

I would end up in jail again! Yes, there is a warrant for my arrest
right now - because I missed that court date - for not cutting my grass
when the city dickhead told me to 3 months ago. (He had to walk around
my lawnmower gas can to get to my porch)

Didn't help that I cussed at him like a hooker and kicked him off my lawn, I guess.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 03:12 AM (gQfxF)

Now you've done it.....you're going to have to tell the story. Not tonight -- but, dude.....

I didn't think it was funny at all when it happened. But it's Chi's story to tell, so I can't say anything until he's opened it.

From what he's opened so far, I can confirm the following. My actions resulted in Chi spending some time in jail. That was not my intent and my actions were motivated by my concern for his well-being. I didn't know some things about the local situation and I was surprised and upset at the way things developed.

You're dragging more in here to explain to the Horde, just sayin'. As for me, you can tell all of it that you want known -- but you may want to take a nap and put things in the best possible light tomorrow.

698From what he's opened so far, I can confirm the following. My actions resulted in Chi spending some time in jail. That was not my intent and my actions were motivated by my concern for his well-being. I didn't know some things about the local situation and I was surprised and upset at the way things developed.

699You're dragging more in here to explain to the Horde, just sayin'. As for me, you can tell all of it that you want known -- but you may want to take a nap and put things in the best possible light tomorrow.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 03:36 AM (EzgxV)

So far, the only thing I've gleened is that Cooth and Chi are worth getting to know...

703
Meh - I really don't care who knows what, to be honest.
Besides - nobody is awake to even listen to the story. And even if they were, nobody cares.
I slept for 3 hours earlier, btw - I won't sleep again for at least 20 hours.

I'm
And, I want to say - Slap is, well... I can't really put it into words...
Lets just say that you're a great person. Know that.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 03:43 AM (gQfxF)

704
16 I think 2015 is the year we finally stopped pretending that Kwanzaa was a real thing.

Posted by: Lauren at January 03, 2016 11:13 PM (GZ6Pf)

I missed that post but my reply would have been I never pretended it was a real thing and after I found the origins of that BS I not only didn't pretend I actively called it a fraud.

Posted by: Vic-we have no party at January 05, 2016 03:44 AM (t2KH5)

705
"You do realize this is coming out because you were upset, right?"
-Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 03:41 AM (EzgxV)

Of course I do. And I apologize.

I'm no longer pissed. Maybe it was the mention of the Christmas lights that set me off...

Slap, you are cherished. Know that. When you got upset at Chi, that meant enough for him to crack a glimpse of something between him and I. It's not mine -- I can only confirm and contextualize what Chi discloses -- but it's there.

In the meantime, sleep well.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 03:53 AM (EzgxV)

708
Hat,
I am nothing but a moron (yes, lower case m). Really.
Cooth? A giant among us mere mortals. If you ever get the chance, meet him. Break bread with him. You won't be sorry.

711
Hat, if you ever find yourself in Va Beach, your money is no good here.

If you are lucky enough to ever meet Cth, my experience says that you will eat/drink for free with him as well. Don't even try to argue.
But, the dude wears shorts year-round. Even when it's snowing out! Weird.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 04:10 AM (gQfxF)

712
-Posted by: The Political Hat at January 05, 2016 03:57 AM (vBeA5)

You're someone who I read often, (and you're often linked by "The Other McCain").

--Restaurant Quality Lemonade!

I am honored, fellow MetalHead.

In your honor, I will link this song. While it isn't Vietnamese Death Metal, it is good ol' USA Rock N' Roll:

For Moron-meetups where it's chilly, it's shorts, a Cthulhu-themed t-shirt, a fedora, and a long coat....and VA beach was definitely chilly. Thing is, if I wanted to wear long pants, I'd have to find a pair.

Cooth showed up at my house one day wearing shorts, and it was about 15, 20 degrees outside. Snowing when we went to lunch.

Even the dog didnt want to go outside. That was funny stuff.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 04:18 AM (gQfxF)

I'm going to call a technical here. I'm of Irish descent, and I showed up on Chi's doorstep to apologize for the previously-mentioned unpleasantness. Yes, I had alcohol in my hand -- and, yes, I wasn't dressed for a walk in the woods. When you're sincerely apologizing in the Irish manner, you don't fluff yourself up for comfort.

726I'm going to call a technical here. I'm of Irish descent, and I showed up on Chi's doorstep to apologize for the previously-mentioned unpleasantness. Yes, I had alcohol in my hand -- and, yes, I wasn't dressed for a walk in the woods. When you're sincerely apologizing in the Irish manner, you don't fluff yourself up for comfort.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 04:32 AM (EzgxV)

Offers of alchohol are always acceptable... just as long as you are willing to accept the ethanolic concoction offered back...

728
What other kind of pants are there, btw? Short pants? Capris, I guess, but if you showed up wearing them, I wouldn't have invited you in...

And yes, Hat, Virginia. I'm actually in Norfolk, but could throw a rock from my front porch & hit Va Beach. About 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, slightly closer to the Chesapeake Bay.

Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 04:37 AM (gQfxF)

729
"Offers of alcohol are always acceptable... just as long as you are willing to accept the ethanolic concoction offered back..."
-Posted by: The Ethanolicous Hat at January 05, 2016 04:35 AM (vBeA5)

Neither. And if Chi had taken the hooch to toast my shivering misery on his front stoop, I would have cheered his toasts. That's how it's done in the old country. Instead, he invited me in and let me taunt his dog.

Like I said, Chi's a gentleman.

Posted by: cthulhu at January 05, 2016 04:41 AM (EzgxV)

731What other kind of pants are there, btw? Short pants? Capris, I guess, but if you showed up wearing them, I wouldn't have invited you in...

And yes, Hat, Virginia. I'm actually in Norfolk, but could throw a rock from my front porch & hit Va Beach. About 10 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, slightly closer to the Chesapeake Bay.
Posted by: Chi at January 05, 2016 04:37 AM (gQfxF)

Funny story about capris.

I was T.A.ing a general chemistry lab and there was a girl with capris on. Someone stormed in and yelled at me for letting in this student with "shorts" on in the lab. I honestly noted that I didn't see anyone with "shorts" on. I was then informed that capris were somehow shorts and that that student wasn't alloweed into the lab because "capris" were considered shorts.

744
In addition to the new guidance on who must obtain a firearms license, Valerie Jarrett announced that the president would require the Social Security Administration to begin the rule-making process for prohibiting certain Social Security recipients from legally obtaining guns, a move that could bar millions from legally owning firearms.

747I was T.A.ing a general chemistry lab and there was a girl with capris on. Someone stormed in and yelled at me for letting in this student with "shorts" on in the lab. I honestly noted that I didn't see anyone with "shorts" on. I was then informed that capris were somehow shorts and that that student wasn't alloweed into the lab because "capris" were considered shorts.

-----------------
I worked in a lab and nearly everyone wore shorts because lab coats were required. BL3 and up had to wear biohazard clothing.

752
Just saw an NBC synopsis on what Obama plans on doing with his EO on guns. It boils down to nothing pretty much. If what they showed was accurate he is going to somehow make it harder for people mentally ill to get firearms and tell the ATF that someone who sells 50 guns a year is now a firearms dealer and must do background checks.

Once again he is just "doing" something and getting another display ready for his library.

Posted by: The Great White Soctsman at January 05, 2016 06:48 AM (iONHu)

753I used to believe that reasoned discourse and
reasonable compromise was the way to insure that we could all live
together peacefully in a pluralistic, democratic society.
I used to be a fucking chump.

Posted by: Cloyd Freud, Unemployed at January 05, 2016 06:37 AM

At least you learned.

Some people haven't managed that yet, and probably never will. Including, I might add, some of the Shining Stars of Conservative Thought.

Those individuals bear considerable responsibility for Choom Boy's continued success in damaging the country that promoted him far, far above his abilities.

Posted by: Mr Scribbler at January 05, 2016 06:48 AM (mIvL9)

754
Regarding the military, part of that is because there's now an awful lot of idiocy when it comes to nitpicky requirements. I was fully qualified to get into the Navy, even had the nuke guys talking to me, except my eyesight was poor(over 20/800, well out of acceptable range). I was told by multiple people(Doc at MEPS, recruiter, others) that if I got Lasik or PRK and dropped my eyesight to under 20/40 that they could get a medical waiver and get me in. I did so, with my eyesight dropping to 20/25.

It turns out that there was an addendum to to the medical exception in 2004. If your eyesight was over 20/800 prior to surgery, you were barred without exception from the military. From what I was able to glean in my research, this came about because a bunch of parents in the early to mid 90's under the same exception who got their kids PRK/Lasik and the gamble failed. So they whined and bitched to their congressmen and thus the regulation was born. Of course, rather than be pegged to a certain percentage of successful surgeries from a few years prior to the current one, they just pegged it at a success rate from the late 90s. Which means that as technology advanced and things like wavefront PRK/Lasik has significantly higher success rates and better outcomes than traditional.

In any case, that 27% number is almost certainly lower than it should be.

Posted by: ravenshrike at January 05, 2016 06:49 AM (khlNS)

755In any case, that 27% number is almost certainly lower than it should be.

756
Just got done reading the EO signed by Obama. It changes absolutely nothing, zero, zilch, zip, nada about gun laws. Idiot, but his base will eat it up. obama is the only one who had the courage to take on the evil NRA, etc.

It is up at White House.gov.

Posted by: The Great White Soctsman at January 05, 2016 07:02 AM (iONHu)

757
744 Valerie Jarrett should not be allowed within 10,000 miles of any American facet of American government. If there are two people about whom we know nothing, and should know as much as possible it's Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama. SS -- law. Gun ownership -- 2nd Amendment.

And VJ and BO want us to be ruled. This is just total BS. And if we had a judicial branch or a legislative branch worth a damn this or a citizenry that was not so complacent it would never have gotten this far.

Valerie Jarrett is just some pug faced scourge. Even the Hillary Hag pales.

759
Dear God... This is amazing..."Remember that people - especially your spouse - have an empathy budget.
And when you're a bitch or a dick to them, their forbearance of your
behavior out of love saps that budget until there's none left for any
generosity or affection."